Andrew Drew and Drew

Wordplay of the title aside, Saltzberg's ode to drawing is fairly earnest and straightforward in its prose. The magic comes from the accompanying artwork, which follows the eponymous boy and his adventures in drawing. His pencil lines sweep across white pages ("Andrew doodled and doodled. Sometimes he noodled"), and his creations take unpredictable shape, revealed bit-by-bit by overlapping gatefolds (a staircase Andrew draws eventually forms a dinosaur's spiny back, and a cross-hatched night sky turns into a trumpet-nosed winged beast in the final spread). Like a certain boy with a purple crayon, Andrew knows that drawing offers limitless possibilities, and readers will, too. Ages 3-6. (Oct.)

PreS-K--Saltzberg's book is a delightful example of less being more. Andrew, the doodle boy, is the only splash of color on the pages, but his simple line drawings are as eye-catching and engaging as he is. By employing the nifty trick of two-thirds and one-third overlapping gatefolds, Saltzberg encourages readers to become actively engaged in Andrew's doodles by guessing what's next behind the flaps. A single, undulating line acquires two eyes when the larger gatefold is opened, and when the smaller one is pulled back, the gaping mouth of a large creature is revealed with a smaller one rolling out of its mouth on a skateboard. What appears to be a set of stairs on another spread is actually the back of a dinosaur. On the last spread, Andrew seems to draw the night sky, but when the flaps are opened, a winged creature freckled with star appears, and Andrew is riding on its back, holding his pencil high. The text is spare, with only a few words per page, letting the products of the boy's imagination and readers' anticipation of them shine as the focus of the book. Never has white space seemed so inviting.--Alyson Low, Fayetteville Public Library, AR