Except If (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Except If Elizabeth Bush Averbeck, Jim. Except If; written and illus. by Jim Averbeck. Atheneum, 2011. [40p.] ISBN 978-1-4169-9544-9 $12.99 Reviewed from galleys R 4-6 yrs. When a blue eggshell cracks open, you expect to see a bird. Unless, of course, it's a baby snake. Then you can expect to see the snake crawl on its belly, unless, of course, it's not a snake at all, but a lizard. The lizard is bound to crawl up the wall, unless, of course, it's really a dinosaur. You get it—surprise follows visual surprise as the featured creature transforms into a fossil, which is a craggy cliffside, which shelters a nest, which hold a blue egg, which hatches … well, see for yourself. Spare text guides listeners through the equally spare compositions, rendered in thick grainy black lines, creamy backgrounds, and swaths of matte earthtone fill. The leap from dino to fossil breaks the narrative trajectory with its slightly jarring implication of a huge passage of time, resulting in an effort half a tick less clever than the visual gamesmanship of, say, a Laura Vaccaro Seeger title. Still, there's a quiet tenderness to Averbeck's prose that blends gracefully with the gentle humor [End Page 224] of the bumbling critters and engages the audience in predicting the answer to "What comes next?" Copyright © 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois