Under cheerfully intrepid cover art, Aaron Becker’s wordless picture book opens onto quite a mood with a wash of watercolors in gloomy grays and blues. Intricate scratchy lines depict a scene of old, crumbly stone buildings from who-knows-what era rising out of standing water. Isolated on various high points of ground are animals: giraffes on one, elephants on another, and tigers on still another. Towering over them all stands an enormous yellow robot caring for the creatures. The robot has windmills on its back and the letters nöa branded on it. What should we make of this soggy scene where even a mysterious robot the color of sunshine looks washed-out on the page?

Therein lies the appeal — bit by bit, the art constructs a complex, affecting narrative without the guardrails of text. Led only by color, line, shape, and composition, readers can interpret a meaningful story as one page leads to the next. 

Changes in perspective combined with the gently curved lines that define the robot’s posture help readers develop empathy for it. These organic lines make the robot appear sentient as it sloshes away in the evening to build small sailboats and test their seaworthiness. Is this a hobby? Is this an emergency plan? Readers get to decide. 

Once empathy is established, sharp contrasts of darkness and light combined with disturbingly angled lines of rain and leaning structures quickly heighten the tension. It is really starting to pour now and the waters are rising. Somewhat submerged, the nöa robot shrinks visually within the page composition creating a sense of vulnerability.  

The nöa builds a new sailboat big enough for all the remaining creatures, and then the art takes readers along for a dramatic sea adventure. In two page-turns, color, line, and composition broil peaceful waters into a terrible storm that nearly capsizes the boat. The art sends readers ricocheting through a range of intense emotions — solidarity, joy, worry, distress, exhaustion. Everything culminates in enough hope to promote questioning, thinking, and reconsidering.

I have always loved a good "Noah’s Ark" retelling. I find the suggestions in Becker’s visuals create a brilliantly original one set in a dystopian future, but this is my personal interpretation. Everyone will have their own, and that will be the right one for them. One does not need to connect to the Noah story to find deep meaning within these pages about the kind of hope and possibility that lies in the act of helping where help is needed. I will be thinking about the distinguished artistry behind this story and how it made me feel for a long time. Maybe the 2025 Caldecott Committee will too...

[Read The Horn Book Magazine review of The Last Zookeeper]