Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Box
Illustrator: Rosalind Beardshaw
Novelty Picture Book
For ages 4 to 6
Candlewick Press, 2016 ISBN: 978-0763689391
Everyone loves getting boxes in the mail. Sometimes they contain a surprise, and sometimes they contain something that we have been eagerly waiting for. Sometimes one of the best things about getting a box is the box itself. After all, a box can, with a little imagination, become just about anything.
One day Thomas gets a box, a “lovely little box,” and inside it there is a drum. Thomas drums as he marches over to see his friend Alice, only to discover that she has a box too. Inside the box there is a tricycle. Peddling to Thomas’s beat, and with Thomas following her, Alice rides over to see Sam, only to find out that he has received a huge box. Inside the box there is a blanket, a warm, cozy covering that Sam drapes over himself so that he can become a blanket monster! Thomas and Alice run away from Sam until they get to where Nancy is standing, which is right next to a really enormous box.
Nancy opens the box to find that there is another box inside it. That box has another box inside it too. Nancy ends up opening five boxes before she finds that the last box contains her toy mouse, who just happens to be fast asleep.
Now the children have a drum, a tricycle, a blanket, and a mouse; and they also have lots and lots of boxes. How wonderful! What are they going to do with them? Should they make a castle or a theatre? Should they build a rocket ship or a train?
This wonderful novelty book, with its lift-the-flaps and telescoping page elements that fold out, will delight children who appreciate the value of a sturdy empty box. They will eagerly turn the pages to find out what the children in the story do next, and in all likelihood they will be inspired to go on a few box adventures of their own.
