The Tiny King
*Starred Review* A tiny king (depicted actual size on the cover) lives all alone in a big castle. His soldiers are large and stern. His dining table is beyond abundant, but “he could never finish so much food all by himself.” His bed is lonely. But the tiny king meets and marries a big princess, and happiness arrives. Big happiness. Now his soldiers are dismissed on holiday, his table is attended (the tiny king and big queen have 10 children, after all), and his bed is full of family. Working in digital collage, Miura combines flat blocky shapes, intricate cutouts, photographs, and other bits of iconographic paraphernalia in bright colors, establishing a cohesive and arresting style that references everything from Matisse to Madison Avenue. At the book’s opening, this visual array hums on a background of deep, flat black. The arrival of the big princess ushers in a new day, however, and with it, a wave of background color. Now the same scenes sing on top of brilliant pinks and greens and oranges. The simple, old-fashioned quality of the story and the modern drama of the illustrations combine to create an especially dynamic and resonant literary experience, simultaneously innovative and nostalgic, sure to charm legions of tiny listeners. Preschool-Grade 2. --Thom Barthelmess