#757 of 1001 · August 27, 2022

Did you ever feel left out as a child? Awkward? Isolated? Perhaps you imagined a wild place where your outsider status would be a boon rather then a hindrance. Lee Nordling and Bruce Zick give us a glimpse of just such a marvelous location in The Bramble. A young boy, excluded from a group game of tag, spots a strange anthropomorphic animal and follows it through a thicket into a mysterious forested realm. There he encounters a clan of strange beasts menaced by an eldritch wave of sentient slime that threatens to devour everything in its path. After participating in the creatures’ ritual bonfire dance, he faces off against the monstrous ooze and dispatches it for good. In the end, he returns to the familiar world with a newfound confidence and poise. Nordling conveys his original tale in a nearly wordless format, the only text consisting of periodic variations on the phrase “Tag. You’re it!” Zick’s illustrations are presented in comic-style panels with limited color palette—sepia for the scenes set in mundane reality, green for the magical woodland, and purple for the dark, roiling wave. #forest #woods #animal #animals #monster #dark #wild #magic #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbooks #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks