Two foundations of good writing are: tension and irony. You don't always see these tools in a picture book. You do not find them in "Hands Are Not for Hitting."
That's why Jon Klassen is so unusual. He has just written a book, "The Skull," that has made some waves.
In this brief Tyrolean folk tale, a girl, Otilla, runs away from home. ("Finally, she had escaped. And she would never, never return.") She stumbles on a castle, a property that is managed by a tiny skull. She and the skull become friendly--and the skull admits that, each night, a headless skeleton visits and causes havoc.
The skeleton shouts, "YOU ARE MINE," and tries to force the skull into slavery.
What occurs next is delightful, surprising, and weirdly plausible.
Tension: A gap between speech and thought. We never learn what happened between Otilla and her family--but we can feel the weight of Otilla's past in every scene. Irony: We might not expect a skull to act as a hero in a story. But Jon Klassen sees the world in his own special way.
This bizarre tale about friendship is haunting me. I recommend it.
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