#999 of 1001 · April 26, 2023

Consider, Gentle Readers, that with the passage of time we may find magic and danger echoing from generation to generation. So it goes in @levi_pinfold’s eerie, poetic tale Paradise Sands. The story opens with a young girl and her three brothers driving through the desert to meet their mother. They stop to pick flowers and find their way to a palatial hotel with no one inside. Tugged onward by the string of destiny and an eldritch nursery rhyme, the boys drink water from a pool, eat food from a table, and are soon ensnared by an unearthly power. The Teller, the edifice’s mysterious leonine master, will only release them if their sister can sit at a banquet table for three days without consuming anything. The sister fulfills her end of the bargain, but because she has used a bit of water on some drooping flowers the Teller lays down a curse: her own children will one day find their way to him and repeat the ordeal. Later, the girl realizes that her mother too visited the Teller as a child. How far back in time does this cycle stretch? How long will it continue? What is the nature of the hotel and its sinister magic? Pinfold, with impressionistic writing and stark, muted mixed-media art, leaves the answers up to us. #paradise #sister #brother #brothers #desert #hotel #lion #mystery #magic #book #books #childrensbooks #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks