Beware Beware

On a cold winter evening, a little girl leaves her mother's warm kitchen to find out what lies outside in the shadows of the mysterious, dark woods.

PreSchool-Grade 2-This British import depicts a little girl's exploration of the dark, mysterious woods surrounding her home. The quiet, poetic text, featuring subtle rhymes and emphatic phrasing, expresses the hidden drama of her simple quest. The child, safe and warm in her mother's kitchen, longs to discover "what's out there." As the sun sets, she creeps out into the snow and then into the woods. She finds the seemingly still forest alive with sprites, goblins, and eerie beasts. She emerges from her adventure to find her anxious mother waiting for her with outstretched arms. Once again safe inside, the girl glances toward the curtained window, contemplating what she saw. This is an effective portrayal of a young child's fascination with the unknown. The illustrations, suggesting a place long ago and far away, add to the mystery. Barrett's dramatic use of color, texture, and light creates a captivating and haunting atmosphere. Warm blues and golds of the kitchen give way to icy pinks and whites of the sky and snow, and to shadowy greens, browns, and grays of the forest. Children will enjoy searching for the hidden dangers in each picture, but adults may find some scenes slightly overdone and melodramatic, and the use of split pages to portray the forest walk seems gimmicky. Ann Jonas's Trek (Greenwillow, 1985) portrays a similar adventure in a more lighthearted, less ominous way. Despite its flaws, Beware Beware is an entertaining purchase.
Heide Piehler, Shorewood Public Library, WI
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The lure of the world beyond the window proves irresistible for the pinafored heroine of this beautifully paced picture book. Mother is at the stove ("Kitchen's warm. / Smells of spice") as her daughter wonders, "But what's out there?" Brief phrases capture the essence of each scene while Barrett's ( The King, the Cat, and the Fiddle ; The Snow Queen , reviewed below) smudged pastels shimmer with potential: outside the world smolders pink, a sunset in winter. Hill ( The Glass Angels ) cleverly contains both the child's excitement and fear in her refrain, "Beware, beware." Once the girl has slipped outside, the woods beckon. There danger lurks and the artwork turns subtler, more intricate. Mossy trees fill with eyes and fingers: "Wolf / Bear / Dragon's lair. / Beware! Beware!" Hill's choice of language is meticulous, her work so carefully crafted as to magnify the import of each word, its resonance and its associations. Versatile full-spread illustrations, delicate and haunting, reflect and enhance the text. The movement from the poetic calm of the salmon pink sky to the frenzy within the wood is graceful and realistic. Split pages in two spreads allow Hill and Barrett to intensify still further the suspense of their wintry drama. Ages 3-up.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ages 5-7. In this unusual picture book, Hill uses a series of quick, vivid images to recreate a child's fear of what lurks in the dark woods. Set in rural England in Victorian times, the illustrations show a little girl, who yearns to leave the warm kitchen and, despite her mother's warnings, explore the nearby forest at dusk. When she does, she finds the winter woods, which at first beckon with elvish lights, to be full of threatening animals, weird demons, and mysterious beasts. These daunting images blend disturbingly into the trunks, twigs, and brambles of the haunted forest. Whether the creatures exist in fact or in the child's imagination is left unsaid. As deft and visionary as the impressionistic lines of poetic text, the artwork creates a time, place, and mood that will appeal to children who want a scary book with no cuddly monsters. Carolyn Phelan