Amazon.com Review
In John Irving's ninth novel
A Widow for One Year, a creepy children's book author named Ted Cole writes a bedtime story about things that go bump in the night. That odd, gently comical tale is brought to life here with Tatjana Hauptmann's shadowy, moonlit pencil illustrations. Young Tom wakes up in the middle of the night to an unusual sound, but his two-year-old brother Tim does not. When his fathers asks what it sounded like, Tom reveals a number of silly and scary options: "like a monster with no arms and no legs," or "a dog trying to open a door," or "a ghost dropping stolen peanuts"--"a sound like someone trying not to make a sound," in fact. The illustrations--with a smattering of wordless spreads--show the pajama-clad Tom wandering alone through a big empty house as bulges in the wall and long shadows hint at unseen horrors. In the end, the father tells his boys that the sound is just a mouse in the wall. Tom is immensely relieved, but baby Tim screams because he doesn't know what a mouse is, and stays up all night to ward off the furry, mysterious thing. Not too scary, nor too comforting, Irving's picture-book debut imaginatively captures that late-night world where everything looks and sounds a little like a monster. (Preschool to age 6)
--Karin Snelson
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 2–Tom wakes up frightened after hearing a noise in the middle of the night and navigates the dark house to find his father. The boy's remarkably descriptive imagination envisions "a monster with no arms and no legs" that "slides on its fur"–and astute viewers will see occasional bulges in the walls and fluttering clothing that complement this description. When his father comes to his room, he has a simple explanation for the noise: there is a mouse in the wall. This answer soothes Tom, but disturbs his younger brother who lies awake imagining his own monster. Dark, atmospheric illustrations capture the unease a child may feel wandering around a sleeping house, as well as the shadows that transform everyday objects into scarier sights. However, the story the artwork tells seems to be a different one from that of the text, and literal-minded youngsters may not make the leap. The father is present throughout most of the narrative, but never appears in the pictures. The text itself is a bit too complex for the intended audience, and the emphasis on frightening details detracts from the comfort of the father's simple explanation. Originally published as a children's story within the author's adult novel,
A Widow for One Year (Random, 1998), this offering doesn't stand on its own.
–Tana Elias, Meadowridge Branch Library, Madison, WI Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
