Far from feeling intimidated by a blank canvas, Andrew sees only the possibilities. Barney Saltzberg's (Arlo Needs Glasses) latest picture book again shows children there are no limits to the imagination.
This paper-over-board book begins with a realistic scene of Andrew sharpening one of his dozen or so pencils at a desk. A self-portrait and two images of pencils (one straight, one pretzel-shaped) hang over the desk. "Andrew was a doodle boy," the book begins.
From there, the pages leave reality behind and enter Andrew's rich interior life. The only interruption to the snow-white background is the boy and his pencil. Sturdy pages cut in half turn to reveal hidden detours of his pencil on the page, while other pages fold out to unveil a completed drawing. The first line, "He drew...," depicts a gently sloping landscape; the half-page folds back to show that the slope gives way to googly eyes, and the foldout page reveals that this is actually the back of an alligator, with a fox skateboarding out of its mouth. What appear to be stairs turn out to be the step-like scales of a dinosaur. He describes it as being "like making magic," the appearance of figures and animals that didn't exist before. In his blue jeans, red shoes and candy-striped orange shirt, Andrew stands out from his black-and-white tableaux. At one point, he sketches a bunny popping out of a hat, then a whole warren of rabbits engulfs him. Andrew also gives permission for a dry spell ("Sometimes, Andrew drew nothing at all. But he never stopped for long"). And his next doodle leads him to a surprising place. Not quite ready to surrender to the night, Andrew transforms the celestial view into the body of a benign nocturnal creature for a flight of fancy.
His name echoes his raison d'être. Unlike Harold, whose purple crayon draws him into adventure, for Andrew, the drawing itself is the adventure. Andrew's tale is the journey of the artist, through moments when inspiration eludes him, to the faith that his impulse to draw will return, and the doodles that lead him into drawing once again. The back cover features a photo of a young Barney Saltzberg, pencil in hand, modeling the fact that he got to follow his childhood passion into adulthood. --Jennifer M. Brown
Shelf Talker: In this humorous and heartfelt portrait of a young artist, Andrew models by example the ebb and flow of the creative process.