Somewhere a Bell Is Ringing

Nye pairs a rhyming poem with scenes that shift among urban and rural communities around the world. “Somewhere a bell is ringing in a busy marketplace/ where a lady in a yellow dress buys lettuces and lace,” she begins, as villagers gather to purchase vegetables in front of a stone church. None of the locations is explicitly identified, but visual clues may help readers make some educated guesses (in this case, a boy’s knit cap and the snow-capped peaks in the distance suggest an Andean village). Nye constructs her images by piecing together shapes cut from hand-painted papers with a variety of textures and patterns; the finished effect is akin to the look of stained glass. Most scenes focus on human activity (a family taking shelter from a thunderstorm in a thatched-roof hut, city dwellers listening to a street musician), and a few highlight animal life (“Somewhere the aurora weaves its colors through the sky/ while penguins on the frozen shore keep round eggs warm and dry”). The attention to detail in both text and art is evident, and the message of global interconnectedness comes through. Ages 4–up. (Dec.)