Tommaso and the Missing Line - Hardcover

Pericoli, Matteo

3.09

94 ratings by Goodreads

9780375841026: Tommaso and the Missing Line

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375841024 ISBN 13: 9780375841026

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2008

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ON THE DAY the strange thing happens—the day his line goes missing—Tommaso knows what he must do: find it. It’s the line on the drawing he puts in his pocket every day, the line he drew of the hill by his nonna’s house, and he knows he must find that very one.

Is that it there in the curl of the cat’s tail? No. Is it there in the antenna of the car? No, not it. It suddenly dawns on Tommaso whom to ask: Nonna. Nonna will know.

In a spare story with a fable-like tone, Matteo Pericoli takes us through an Italian landscape in search of Tommaso’s line—and in doing so brings us along on a journey of discovery. Exquisitely detailed black-and-white art is punctuated by a bright ribbon of orange: Tommaso’s missing line (or is it?).

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About the Author:

Matteo Pericoli is an Italian-born architect and the creator of Manhattan Unfurled; Manhattan Within; See the City: The Journey of Manhattan Unfurled; and The True Story of Stellina. He lives with his wife and daughter in Queens, New York.

From Booklist:

Tommaso keeps his favorite drawing in his pocket. It’s a sketch he’s made of his grandmother’s house atop a gentle hill, bordered by trees, distant mountains, and stick-figure versions of himself and Grandma. It’s a familiar and comforting image until, “One day a strange thing happened: one of the lines in Tommaso’s drawing was gone—disappeared.” The curved line that represented the hill has indeed vanished, and Tommaso goes on a hunt for the line that takes him through a crisply illustrated black-and-white Italian cityscape. Tommaso finds plenty of lines—illustrated in vibrant orange—but none of these dog-leashes, car antennas, cat tails, or barber hair clippings are right. Initially reminiscent of Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955), Pericoli’s intricate artwork reveals his expertise as an architect, and will reward the young reader on the lookout for all the lines Tommaso misses. The text becomes a bit repetitive when Tommaso returns to Grandma’s house, but readers may be more interested in the white lettering, which stands out so vibrantly against the orange background. Grades K-3. --Daniel Kraus

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