Shadow by Suzy Lee

TITLE: Shadow  and Mirror
AUTHOR + ILLUSTRATOR: Suzy Lee
PUBLISHED BY: Chronicle Books
ISBN:  978-0811872805 (Shadow) and 978-1934734391 (Mirror)




Suzy Lee is very dear to the heart of LLB.  Her Caldecott medal winner Wave was one of the first books I featured here.  It is one of those remarkable picture books that transcends age, and was an instant classic (I don't use those words lightly).

And she's done it again.  I haven't found a single book in 2010 that is as delightful and imaginative, insightful and immediate as Ms. Lee's Shadow.  Another wordless picture book, our bobbed heroine runs up to an attic, and plays games with the shadows cast by a single lightbulb.  Lee only uses 2 colors: yellow and black.  The book flip horizontally, so that reality is show on the top of the page and the imaginative world on the bottom. Stunning and vibrant, it portrays the world of imagination in the most eloquent terms.

Shadow

Chronicle Books has also re-released a similar Suzy Lee book, Mirror.  In this a little girls sees herself in a mirror, and plays with her reflection.  Eventually the reflection takes on a life of its own--and startles the girls.  In the end, as with the girl in Shadow, the reflection and reality are united.

Shadow is perhaps my favorite book of 2010.  I hope you'll check it out, and tell me what you think!

Mirror