Review: The Squishiness Of Things
Posted: Wednesday, July 13, 2005
by ngoldman
Norm Goldman
Authored and Illustrated by Marc Kompaneyets
ISBN 0-375-82750-1
Publishers: Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
The following review has been contributed by: Lily Azerad-Goldman &CLICK TO VIEW Lily Azerad-Goldman's Reviews
‘The Squishiness Of Things," by debut picture book author and illustrator Marc
Kompaneyets, should have been titled “Hillarious Hieronymus."
Kompaneyets tells the story of Hieronymus, the “king of knowers," who knew
everything as a result of his eccentric experiments. For instance, he once
squished 16,567 bugs just to measure up their “squishiness." However, there came
a day when he was stumped he could not fathom the origin of one single little
white hair that landed on his desk. He then travels around the world in search
of the hair’s origin, leaving his lab in the hands of his assistant Pieter, “a
world renowned master of 234 napping techniques."
Along the way, he meets strange creatures: the Bobnatabobs, who love noise the
Pabnayabish, who suffer from long term memory loss and the Yabodabos, who are
fearful gents. All these mysterious inhabitants cannot tell him the origin of
his white hair, so he returns to his lab and his napping helper.
In addition to his imaginative and hilarious prose, Kompaneyets is a very
talented illustrator. His sepia pages are just as gorgeous as his toned-down
colored ones and are reminiscent of French school paintings such as Chardin’s La Bénédicité
Vermeer’s Milk Maid must have inspired the illustration of Hieronymus in his
lab (p.3).
His uses of velvety colors infuse the paintings with an exotic, medieval flavor.
The movements and facial expressions of his characters dance on the page, while
bugs (not the squished ones, mind you) are realistic and brilliant in color. He
uses chiaroscuro (a technique to contrast light and dark) and perspective
techniques effectively. His costumes as well as his backgrounds seem to be
inspired by his Russian heritage as Moscow or St. Petersburg’s architecture are
recognizable in some of the urban scenes.
The Squishiness of Things is an engaging, funny, entertaining, imaginative fable
sure to please all ages. Expect this book to be a classic!
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Lily Azerad-Goldman is an artist, children's author and book reviewer for www.bookpleasures.com.
Lily is also melds her art with her husband Norm's words, wherein they write travel articles focusing on romantic destinations. You can view Lily's art work and Norm's travel articles on www.sketchandtravel.com
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