It’s Not Very Complicated

“Our street is small and not very pretty,” says the narrator of Ribeyron’s story, so the unnamed child and their neighbor, Louise, draw trees on the ground “with big colored chalk.” One day, Louise asks the narrator, a kid of few words, “what I have inside my head.” Standing in front of a mirror, “I wanted to see what really was inside my head. It’s not very complicated. I just need to open it up the right way.” When they lift their hair off like a cap, there’s a lush, inviting forest inside, its soft-edged, organic trees and creatures explored in a series of dreamy spreads: “A dark forest. A sweet forest.” When the child seeks to share this experience with Louise, an abrupt line reads, without context, “Louise was gone. Forever.” Though tears don’t come, the child opens a little door in their chest—and there, finds the memory of Louise. Ribeyron’s story is a philosophical meditation in pictures, expressing in images the treasures that lie within every human being and what it means to know oneself and others. Ages 8–up. [em](Nov.) [/em]