To Market! To Market!
In India, a girl and her mother enter a large, indoor marketplace. At first the child wonders how to spend the coins in her pocket, but soon she begins amusing herself at the stalls selling bangles, flowers, poultry, fabric, fruit, fish, spices, and mirrors. After they leave the market, she realizes that she has forgotten to buy anything. Ravishankar, an Indian children's writer best known for nonsense poetry, creates a series of playful, rhyming verses that use repeated words to good effect. Scanziani, an Italian artist living in India, matches the words with dazzling colors and rhythmically repeated forms in paintings that create a vivid sense of the market, while echoing the girl's imaginative play through the addition of a few fantastic elements. The volume's unusual format (14¼ inches wide by 8¼ wide, bound at the top) offers a wide expanse for reproducing each illustration: no gutter and plenty of white space for creative sizing, shaping, and positioning of text on the page. Libraries seeking accessible international books for children will welcome this colorful choice. Phelan, Carolyn