FICTION

May the Stars Drip Down

by Jeremy CHATELAIN
illus. by Nikki McClure. 40p. Abrams. 2014. RTE $17.95. ISBN 9781419710247. LC 2013008241.
COPY ISBN
PreS-K—There is something unsettling, rather than soothing, about the lyrics of this lullaby: "May the sand wash over you." "Where the seaweed and the starfish hide,/You'll float away on waves of blue." It's hard to know what these images are intended to convey, beyond an oblique, vague, poetic sensibility. McClure's cut-paper illustrations display assured technique but do little to illuminate the meaning of the words. Perhaps it all hangs together better when one hears the music, which a note on the verso invites readers to download from the Abrams website.—Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Library, NY
Lyrics to the musician-author's lullaby, downloadable on the publisher's website, make for spare, bedtime-suited text, despite some disjointed page-broken sentences ("Dreams of sand out in some desert wide, / That will blow all day into the night, / And there will come a new dune"). McClure's dreamy torn- and cut-paper art in mostly blues pitch in on the lulling tone.
Reviewed by Miriam Lang Budin , May 01, 2014

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