Ten super-pithy, gratifyingly silly stories introduce early readers to the allure of micro-tales, accompanied by droll illustrations in candy-bright colors.
With exquisite comedic timing, Italian author and illustrator Silvia Borando (If I Met a Bear) creates picture book magic by combining a handful of evocative words with simple cartoon illustrations done in black felt pen and colored digitally. Total word-counts for most of the stories in Borando's Short Stories hover around 20. In the first story, which begins and ends before the title page, there is a mostly blank double-page spread in orange and red, depicting a wide sky and an expanse of grass. The next spread has the same backdrop, now inhabited. A big blue carefree-looking elephant, crisply outlined, strolls along on the left side: "Once upon a time there was an elephant." On the right stands a tiny black ant: "and there was an ant." Turning the page, readers see the elephant standing where the ant had been a moment earlier: "'What ant?' asked the elephant. The End." Other stories feature a prickly hedgehog at a birthday party with balloons ("Party's over"), a chatty frog and a bored chameleon, and a snail and a centipede who want to go somewhere... as soon as the centipede puts its shoes on.
Borando's use of three-act structure--a format that includes the classic "Once upon a time," a denouement, and a decisive "The End"--allows young readers to anticipate the humor without guessing the outcome. Translator and author/illustrator Felicita Sala (A Lost Cause) efficiently changes the Italian to English, ensuring that there is not a single excess word in this fun-size collection. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor