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The dedication to WUMBERS by Amy Krouse Rosenthal with illustrations by Tom Lichtenheld reads:

We dedic8 this book 2 William Steig, the cre8tor of C D B! (cer10ly the inspiration for this book) and so many other cla6.

I am thrilled that Rosenthal and Lichtenheld (the duo who brought us the fantastic Duck! Rabbit! and Yes Day! as well as It's Not Fair and the OK Book) have given a nod to Steig and brought his books back into the spotlight with their book, WUMBERS (words + numbers.) And, with the language of texting has becoming so prevalent, this book will be an easy-breezy read. For the intended audience of this book, parents and little kids, WUMBERS will be the riddle-ish word play that is was meant to be.

I think you get the idea of WUMBERS without me giving too much more away. Buy this book. Have fun reading it with your kids. Then come up with some wumbers of your own!

Source: Review Copy from Publisher

William Steig's 

inspirational, very fun books 

and still in print!

Spy School is the newest novel from Stuart Gibbs. His second novel, Belly Up, about mysterious animal deaths at a zoo caught my eye both for its original plot idea and for the potential humor the jacket flap promised. Although I have yet to read  Belly Up, I can tell you that Spy School is funny, action packed and an intelligent book about intelligence and is so good that I plan to read all of Mr Gibbs' books asap.

Spy School begins with a heavily redacted document from the Office of the CIA International Investigations regarding Operation Creeping Badger and a twelve-year old named Benjamin Ripley and ends with one. In between, from January 16 to February 10, we get the fantastic story of Ben Ripley and his life as a spy in training at the CIA Academy of Espionage in Washington DC. But, before he is inducted into the Academy, he discovers a man in a tuxedo sitting on his living room couch when he gets home from school. The man introduces himself as Alexander Hale and, aside from his seeming penchant for sports drinks, he has a definite James Bond air about him. Hale explains that, because of Ben's frequent visits to the CIA website, high scores on the games, genius math skills, ability to speak three languages and heretofore untapped gift for cryptology, he has been recruited to attend the Academy. The fact that this is happening mid-year is brushed off by Hale (as is the condition of the student who's place Ben is taking.) As Hale and Ben pull onto the school grounds he is caught up in an attack, shot at and tackled by a fellow student who smells like an "intoxicating combination of lilacs and gun powder." She gives him a taser and sends him to the principal's office to alert the higher ups of the invasion. As Ben bursts into the office after using his taser to disable the computer locking the door, he is greeted by the administrative staff of the school. He is informed that he has received a D- on his SACSA (Survival and Combat Skills Assessment) and thinks to himself, "a mere twenty-three minutes after my arrival at spy school, I had learned something extremely important about it: it wasn't going to be easy."

I have to admit that I haven't read many books about espionage, for kids or adults, but I have the feeling that, if you are going to write a spy book these days, you have to have an angle. Since Ian Fleming opened up a world of cliches surrounding spies with his creation James Bond (in fact, one of the many funny bits in Spy School is the label "Fleming," which is what you are called if you arrive at spy school thinking you're actually going to "become James Bond") I'm not sure if you can write a straight spy story anymore. I love the direction that Gibbs takes Spy School in and it is one that will definitely appeal to older readers (11 - 14) whereas Michael Buckley's equally fantastic but very different (and soon to be reviewed here) N.E.R.D.S. series of books about spy kids is perfect for younger readers, especially those with reading skills higher than their grade level. Spy School is every bit as funny as Buckley's books, but in a drier and slier way. In a class titled "Introduction to Self-Preservation," a lecture on how to avoid ninjas begins with the instruction to "Stay out of Japan." A game of capture the flag finds Ben and a classmate planning to scale a wall. When she pulls a grappling hook out of her backpack and asks, "I assume you know how to use this?" Ben thinks to himself, "I didn't. I'd never even seen a grappling hook until that moment. Not outside of the movies. I couldn't even imagine where she'd got it. I'd never noticed a grappling hook store - or a grappling hook section at Target - in my life." Then there is a self-explanatory self-defense move called the "Bashful Armadillo." And, my favorite, "'Hogarth's Theory of fear-based urination': The amount of danger you are in is directly proportional to your need to pee." 

Without giving too much away, I can tell you that Spy School is set in a highly secretive Academy that trains teens to become CIA agents once they graduate and that the enemies are not foreign agents but the school administration and Ben's own classmates. After nearly failing his SACSA test, Ben is bullied by an upperclassman as he unpacks his dorm room. The whole school seems to know about Ben's stellar cryptology skills and Chip wants him to hack the school's mainframe, cracking the "rotating sixteen-character daisy-chain password protecting the firewall." Ben is rescued from the seemingly demented Chip by Murray Hill, a slacker classmate who's goal is to obtain a desk job with the CIA and retire young (and rich) by getting bad grades in classes that require physical exertion. Later that night, an assassin enters Ben's room and, despite a shot being fired, Ben talks (and hacks with a tennis racket) his way out of the dangerous situation. As the story unfolds, Ben is befriended, although entirely in secret, by Erica Hale, the upperclass mate who smells like lilacs and gunpowder and also happens to be the daughter of Alexander Hale. Erica is dead serious about spy school and uncovering the mystery behind Ben's admittance to the Academy. When it's clear that Ben's life is in danger, he is moved out of his dorm room and into "The Box," an underground holding cell for dangerous prisoners that Erica is able to infiltrate. The mystery of who is after Ben and what the endgame for Operation Creeping Badger is had me reading breathlessly to the end of the book. In the absence of impossibly unrealistic spy gear, Gibbs does create a very cool maze of underground tunnels and rooms that extend beyond the grounds of the school. But what I like most about Spy School is that the kids have to use their brains to figure out what's going on. And, while Ben thought he was a pretty smart kid before entering the Academy, when he's in a school full of really smart kids and forced to use his brains in a new way, and things get very interesting. Although it was a struggle from start to finish for Ben and he has quite a few down moments, I hope that he gets to stay at the Academy and that Gibbs' has another book Spy School book in the works!

BREAKING NEWS!!!! 

BEN & ERICA WILL BE BACK IN 2013!!!

Here's the blurb from Stuart Gibbs' website:

Ben Ripley is back for more adventure, more mayhem — and more hilarity.  Now, he’s spending the summer at the Academy’s of Espionage’s top secret outdoor education facility, aka ‘Spy Camp.’  But any hopes he has for a relaxing break from spy school are quickly dashed when SPYDER resurfaces — and this time, the evil organization is targeting Ben himself.  It isn’t long before Ben finds himself on the run in the wilderness with both Erica and Alexander Hale in tow.  Can they survive long enough to figure out SPYDER’s fiendish plot this time?

More books by Stuart Gibbs:

Boy + Bot 

Boy + Bot, written by Ame Dyckman and illustrated by Dan Yaccarino is a clever take on the realm of robots but also a subtle story about differences and similarities. Dan Yaccarino's cheerfully bright palette and crisp style are perfectly suited to this sweet story.

Actually, Boy + Bot is also very funny. When a boy, out in the woods collecting pinecones, meets a robot, they become fast friends despite their differences. When Bot accidentally gets turned off, the boy takes him home in his wagon with the hopes of reviving/repairing him. There is a very funny scene which strikes me as a uniquely kid-like gesture, when the boy feeds the unresponsive Bot applesauce. The boy gives up and goes to sleep and this is when Bot's power switch gets bumped on. Then it's Bot's turn to worry about the boy. Just as Bot is about to try to put a fresh battery in the boy, his inventor comes in and sets everything straight. Then we are treated to Yaccarino's joyful illustrations as the pair plays together, sharing in their similarities and allowing for their differences. I made  Boy + Bot sound more didactic than it is. While there is a subtle message, Boy + Bot is really just a fantastic story that is fun to look at and fun to read.

Kooser tells the story of House Held Up By Trees in a way that reminded me immediately of the invaluable Virginia Lee Burton's Caldecott winner from 1943, The Little House, with an echo of Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree. However, as he did with Bag in the Wind, Kooser takes a story that has potential for emotional friction and tells it as it is in his straightforwardly  poetic fashion.

But the house sits empty and little trees begin sprouting here and there on the lawn. It seems that "nobody wanted to buy the house. Nobody could explain why, but it just didn't seem like a house where anybody wanted to live. That happens sometimes." Nature takes over and Kooser's writing becomes even more lovely. "Some of the seeds had sprouted along the foundation, where the water ran off the roof and into a deep crack, and these little trees were soon saplings, pressed against the side of the house. When the wind blew, they waved back and forth, making dark arcs on the fading paint." As the weather wears the house down and it begins to collapse in on itself, the "young trees kept it from falling apart, and as they grew bigger and stronger, they held it together as if it was a bird's nest in the fingers of their branches. And very gradually, the growing trees began to lift the house off its foundation."  Kooser ends his story saying, "The trees lifted and lifted it, and maybe you will drive past it today or tomorrow, as it floats there above the ground like a tree house, a house in the trees, a house held together by the strength of trees, and the wind blowing, perfumed by the little green flowers."

Beautiful. Almost magical, but just a bit too practical for that kind of word. Ted Kooser is a masterful story teller in miniature which, if you think about it, is what a poet does with a poem. Kooser's skills seem perfectly suited for the picture book format and I can't think of a better written, more significant picture book that has been written in the last few years. This is a book to give as a gift, a book that will imprint upon the memory of a child and stay with that child for years to come. A book the grown child will seek out decades later to read to new children. A classic.

Enjoy these images from Jon Klassen's website, Burst of Beaden.

I snapped up Rebecca Wade's The Whispering House and devoured it for two very pertinent reasons. First, as a bookseller, I have noticed over the last year or so that ghost stories have become very popular with readers of middle grade fiction. Also, I loved ghost stories when I was a kid. The two that left the greatest impression on me were Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp and the Newbery Honor winner The Headless Cupid, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. These days, Mary Downing Hahn has a corner on supernatural stories for kids who have outgrown Goosebumps but are too young for young adult books. This means that Wade's The Whispering House is a very welcome addition to the shelves. One thing I loved about ghost stories as a kid were the ones that kept you guessing as to whether there was a genuine haunting going on or a series of coincidences, accidents and sneaky, creepy characters making lit look like a ghost was afoot. That way, when I was done reading I could look around my room, peer into the dark corners and feel that delicious chill that you get when you are scaring yourself. Rebecca Wade captures this duality wonderfully with The Whispering House, her second book. Wade, who's day job is playing viola with the Philharmonic Orchestra in England, also wrote The Theft and the Miracle, which also featured Hannah and Sam, main characters of The Whispering House. I didn't know this until I finished reading The Whispering House and it didn't affect my enjoyment at all. In fact, there were references to a mysterious, dangerous event some eighteen months earlier involving Hannah, Sam, a statue that went missing from the town cathedral, the police, a bishop and a math teacher who is also a bit of a witch, that were intriguing but not crucial to following the plot of The Whispering House. One aspect of the book that I suspect was explained more thoroughly in The Theft and the Miracle, and one that I would like to know more about, is Hannah's drawing skills. An accomplished artist, she sketches often in The Whispering House and her drawings sometimes seem to have a clairvoyant capacity to act as a connection between worlds that I never fully understood. However, this small plot point did not diminish my enjoyment of The Theft and the Miracle, which is currently only available as an eBook. 

The Whispering House begins in the end of May in the school library. Fourteen year old Hannah is trying, but failing, to study for upcoming exams. Sam, her best friend and son of a petty thief who has been gainfully employed for the last eighteen months (a reference to The Theft and the Miracle, no doubt) is busy making and throwing paper airplanes. Nearby, Emily is desperately searching for a page of information about Napoleon that she printed off the internet, telling Sam and Hannah that he feared he was being poisoned at the end of his life and forensics tests done recently actually found traces of arsenic in a lock of his hair. This tidbit of seemingly irrelevant information weaves its way through the story, turning up again near the end of the book to reveal a fascinating bit of historical information. This  information proves to be the key to part of the mystery that unfolds when Hannah's family is forced to move into a rental home for a few months over the summer while their house is repaired. Cowleigh Lodge turns out to be a Vicotrian-era house that seems to be deteriorating from the inside out. A new coat of paint has been applied to the walls, but as the Price family settles in the history of the house begins to seep out. Hannah begins having strange, intense dreams about being under a canopy of glittering green leaves with a strange, blankly staring face next to hers. Then, she finds a dusty book of fairy tales wedged in between the wall and the stiff, thick overlays of several decades worth of wallpapering. The book is inscribed, "To Maisie From Your Loving Papa, Christmas 1876." The discovery of Maisie Holt's gravestone in the neighborhood graveyard and the knowledge that she died when she was only eleven years old spurs Hannah to want to make sense of this child's death, despite the fact that she knows children of all classes died young during the Victorian era. 

The clues begin to pile up as the house quickly deteriorates. Sam tries to help Hannah make sense of the things she is finding and the dreams she is having, but it is a climactic night, June 23rd, the date of Maisie's death as well as the day of the Midsummer Fair that reveals the truth behind the mystery. Wade  does a wonderful job sprinkling The Whispering House with ghostly happenings, from china breaking and magnetic fridge letters spelling out clues to the haunting dreams that Hannah has, but her true strength comes when she is weaving the past and the present into one. I especially like the chapters surrounding the Midsummer Fair, which is held at St John's Field, that is a huge event in town each year. Watching the costume parade and observing the line of little children dressed as Jack and the Giant, dragons and knights, vampires and vampire slayers, Hannah notes the "great struggle between good and evil. Victim and predator, innocent and knowing, captive and deliverer. Had it always been so simple? Was it still?" As Hannah finds out by the end of the book, it's not that simple and the roles of victim and predator, captive and deliver, are not always clearcut. Listening to her former teacher and the bishop talk about the significance of Midsummer's Night, the history of St John's Field, a healing well that was once there, and waking from dreams to see the world anew as in Shakespeare's play, Hannah drifts off, slipping into an eerie dream. As the night unfolds, Hannah and Sam find themselves alone in Cowleigh Lodge without electricity and a rainstorm pounding down. As Sam tries to find candles and matches and make dinner, Hannah is clearly not herself and possible possessed by Maisie. As he puts two bowls of soup in the microwave, she asks, "Why do you put the food in a cage? It cannot escape." Frustrated and worried by what she is saying, Sam pauses and realizes that, without electricity, "this house had reverted to its original state. The refrigerator was just a cupboard, the microwave a cage; the stove, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, and all the rest of the carefully designed appliances were no more than lumber. A waste of space." With the crumbling state of the house, Wade makes the connections between Maisie and Hannah palpable and urgent, which is crucial since, in the end, despite appearances and assumptions, the house had an unfortunate, although not malicious, role in Maisie's death. 

Having read At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson, I was familiar with the vital plot point in the story. Even so, I didn't see it coming an applaud Wade for this ingenious twist. For those of you who have never read (or listened to, I always experience Bryson via audio book) Bill Bryson, he is a meticulous historian and sometimes scientist who is one of the first among the now popular wave of non-ficiton authors to write detailed, fascinating, highly readable books about seemingly boring things. At Home: A Short History of Private Life is a fantastic stroll through history and Bryson's 150 year old rectory house in England that covers the history of the various rooms and everything that goes on in them. 

But, as with all picture books worth owning, there are layers to the story and it can be read and received in more than one way. In her interview with Cooper at Kirkus Reviews, Julie Danielson points out the way that the story in Homer transcends pets, saying, "It makes me think of the happiness children can feel in a family that notices and loves them, and it even makes me think of the wisdom in not hyper-overscheduling one's children." Cooper, who used his family for models in the book as well as his childhood dog, Homer, responds, "On its face, this is a simple book. A dog sits on a porch. His family comes and goes. The end. But, yes, I hope something more is happening here. The children head out into the world - one girl explores a field by herself, one explores the beach by herself - before returning to the security of their family. They are bold, then safe - with unscheduled space, as you say, to pick flowers or collect shells. This freedom fills them up. Maybe it's the paradox of parenting. How, if we let children go, they come back stronger. . . If we create space for those we love, then love will come into that space." I loved the book  Homer before I knew the thoughts and emotions that went into it, but knowing what Cooper intended when he created it makes me love it even more. This book isn't just for dog lovers, even though the tag line, "Have you ever loved a dog?" is perfect. Homer is for anyone who is part of a pack.

More fantastic books from Elisha Cooper

(for those of you who love his work, his next book is about trains and a cross-country journey!)

Magic Thinks Big

Catherine Jinks' newest book, The Paradise Trap,  is a surprise for two big reasons - the continual presence of adults in the story and the fact that the villain at the heart of the story is a character from Greek mythology. The Paradise Trap also stands out among the recent crop of fantasy novels for being set squarely in the United States. Even the fantasy world that is created, the Paradise Trap of the title, is an echo (albeit a malevolent one) of life as we know it here. But, I am getting ahead of the story.

Holly Bradshaw is a single mom hoping to give her son Marcus a summer vacation that will get him out of the house and off those video games that he seems to be playing constantly saying, "I guarantee Diamond Beach will be more fun than any computer game. It will be our best holiday ever." She buys a creaky old trailer and books a space at Diamond Beach, the place where she spent many happy summer vacations as a child. A thorough cleaning of the trailer does nothing to remove the "sweaty gym clothes" smell that bothers Marcus, but his mother assures him they will spend most of their time outdoors enjoying the "rock pool and barbecues and lagoons and heaps of great kids and a fantastic playground." Diamond Beach proves to be about as exciting as their new trailer when the Bradshaws find things have changed - a lot - since Holly was a kid. The only spot they could afford is miles away from the beach and the campers are packed in like sardines. There are lines at the bathroom, lines at the playground and mobs of "yelling, squabbling children" running rampant. The two park the trailer and begin the long walk to the ocean almost right away. Things brighten a bit when Holly is spotted by her old Diamond Beach friend Coco, just as they are passing the fancy trailers belonging to the wealthiest campers who can afford a spot on the beachfront. It turns out Coco, a cat lover, has married Sterling Huckstepp of Huckstepp electronics and is living in luxury along with his children from a previous marriage, Newton and Edison, and a prototype robot butler named Prot. Sterling is happy to lead the life of a slightly mad inventor and happy to have Coco live the life of leisure. Holly and Coco start up like the never left off, immediately dishing about Jake Borazio, the cute fellow childhood camper who disappeared one summer. With Newt spending all her time on the phone, Marcus befriends the younger Edison and tells him that he thinks his trailer is haunted by the old lady who owned it. Immediately intrigued, Edison insists that Jake show him the trailer. Instead of the body of the old lady, the two find a dark, dank cellar under the trailer when they lift up one of the bench seats.

Stumbling into this underworld, the two find a corridor lined with doors and Edison impulsively yanks one open to find a "vivid, sunlit amusement park" that seems to be empty of visitors. Marcus is suspicious right away, but Edison is entranced and runs off. Marcus' skepticism and expression of anything less than happiness with his situation seems to set off an alarm for the "guardians" of this place, the stuffed animals that are prizes for winning the carnival games. Marcus is shoved out of the room and finds himself in the cellar, running for help. Not wanting to worry the parents just yet, Marcus grabs Newt's phone as a way to get her to help and loses her to another door. This one leads to the most amazing party ever, with all her friends and even some celebrities in attendance. Again, Marcus finds himself ejected when he is less than happy with the situation. Next Coco is lost to the Crystal Hibiscus Spa where she is attended to by giant, human-like cats. Finally, Sterling, Holly and Prot are called upon for help and the story really starts to take off.

Once Holly, Sterling, Prot and Marcus are all in the cellar they have to figure out how to rescue Coco, Newt and Edison, realizing that the doors in the corridor open only to the dream holiday of the person who opened it. Since none of them has dreamed of going to a spa, dance party or amusement park their chances of getting the right doors open are slim and, once in their dream holidays, it is unlikely that Coco, Newt and Edison will ever want to or be able to leave. However, Marcus has a healthy sense of apprehension and an acute sense the layout and action in a video game and is the most suited to figuring a way out of this dire situation. Also, Marcus seems to be the most willing to accept that there is magic at work, which proves to be vital. Once he figures out that Prot, a robot with no wishes, can open doors, the game changes - a bit. An elevator trip to a dusty old travel agent's office reveals brochures to all the dream vacations of everyone who has ever been lured into this Paradise Trap. While working on a strategy, Coco and Holly notice a brochure for Diamond Beach with a picture of Jake on it. Convinced he must be here too, they insist on rescuing him. How they do this and what they learn from Jake is both chilling and opportune. It seems that Jake has trapped Miss Molpe, the old lady who owned the trailer that Holly bought, the same old lady who spent summers at Diamond Beach and befriended the children who vacationed there, in a suit case. And Miss Molpe is actually a siren. While Jake has a basic grasp of what a siren is, it is Newt who provides most of the important information as a popular band she follows is called the Sirens, with each female band member adopting the name of one of the sirens from Greek mythology.

The final third of the book is taken up with the epic struggle that the adults, kids and robot wage against the siren in their efforts to escape her magical trap. Doors that open onto paradise turn into doors that lead to nightmares that include a sinking cruise ship (this is where Marcus' knowledge of video games, specifically Cruising for a Bruising, which is played out on a cruise ship, come into play) and an airport where there is no food to be found anywhere and everyone is hungry and cranky. The challenges and dangers seem never ending, but that's all right because Jink's imagination is also never ending and her writing brings the setting vividly to life. Readers who enjoyed The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan and The Shadow Thieves by Anne Ursu, both of which are series, will definitely gobble up The Paradise Trap.

The great cover art is by Scott Altman.

How Many Jelly Beans? is the Sneaky Chef of picture books, but instead of hiding vegetables in kid friendly foods, Andrea Menotti and illustrator Yancey Labat (illustrator of the superb Worst Case Scenario Ultimate Adventure Series of choose-your-own adventure books by David Borgenicht) have hidden math facts inside of a brilliantly colored, candy coated story about two siblings trying to out do each other. This husband and wife duo have created the candy version of a picture book with their oversized, brightly colored book that also has a giant fold-out poster at the end that has one million jelly beans on it. Amazing!

Menotti's story is a simple one. Siblings Emma and Aiden are offered jelly beans. "How many jelly beans would you like, Emma?" is the gun that goes off at the start of the race. Emma asks for ten jelly beans. Aiden asks for twenty. Murphy the dog takes a quiet interest in the battle as it escalates.

Very quickly the siblings are looking at 500 jelly beans, Emma insisting that Aiden cannot eat that many. When Aidan insists he can eat 1,000 jelly beans in a year Labat presents a wonderful spread with calendar pages for each month of the year, each day having two or three jelly beans in its box. Another fantastic illustration is Emma on her bed with 5,000 jelly beans covering her bedspread. One of the delightfully sneaky things that Menotti and Labat do in How Many Jelly Beans? that makes this book so enjoyable is to present the rising quantities of jelly beans in interesting settings.

They even manage to make 10,000 and then 100,000 jelly beans spread across a page interesting, especially when Aiden says, "If I had a hundred thousand jelly beans I'd choose . . . 5,000 blueberry, 10,000 watermellon, 2,000 cherry, 25,000 orange, 50,000 grape, 4,999 strawberry and 1 lemon." The final fold-out page of How Many Jelly Beans? finds the siblings thinking that 1,000,000 jelly beans are "probably too many." To that, Murphy responds, "Speak for yourself." One thing I'm sure of, there can never be enough books like How Many Jelly Beans? 

How Many Jelly Beans? is also reviewed at fuse #8 and 100 Scope Notes.

HIPPOPPOSITES by Janik Coat is yet another fantastic book from Abrams Appleseed, the new imprint from Abrams Books dedicated to instilling a love of books in babies and toddlers by publishing books that will "foster the development of its young readers and engage them and their adults in artful, beautifully conceived books." I love this philosophy and I adore every book that they have put out thus far, from the visually dazzling Pantone Colors book that takes learning your colors to a whole new level, to Huff & Puff by Claudia Rueda and the fantastically fun Get Dressed by Seymour Chwast. I don't have any readers in the house who require board books anymore, but I own these books and will pull them out and read them from time to time because they are all creatively out of the ordinary, beautifully put together and fun to read. The next time I need a baby shower gift or birthday gift for a toddler, these are the books I am giving.

As the parent of three kids, I have to confess that reading about and learning these rudimentary basics was a dull task by the time my youngest was ready to read and not eat the books. Abrams Appleseed are notable and innovative in the artistic and new ways that they approach these tired old subjects. After letters and numbers, what's next to learn? Opposites. And there are plenty of board books on the shelves that cover this concept but none of them that do so with the visual appeal, clarity and crispness that Coat brings to the theme.

Of course Coat covers the standard opposites like small and large, light and dark. But invisible and visible? That's a new one, and especially fun when you try to imagine an invisible hippopotamus. And that is the true fun and delight in this book. Well, the hippo and Coat's brilliant design sense. Coat also brings a bit of the artist to her book with opaque and transparent, positive and negative, squared and rounded and clear and blurry to more common opposites like full and empty and soft and rough (YES! this is also a "touch and feel" book!)