cover image FIVE LITTLE FIENDS

FIVE LITTLE FIENDS

Sarah Dyer, . . Bloomsbury, $15.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-1-58234-751-6

In this poetic book from a British newcomer, five acquisitive imps express their love of nature by hoarding "the one thing they liked best" about the world. One tugs at the orange disc of the sun, another tears the sky like a long piece of paper and the others take the land, moon and sea. With their prizes, they adjourn to their private dwellings, a quintet of hollow, Stonehenge-like sculptures. Only then do they notice that "the sea could not flow without the pull of the moon,/ and the moon could not glow without the light of the sun." They restore everything to its place, and a closing picture shows them standing hand in hand (or claw in claw), where before they stood in an unjoined row. In unadorned sentences and vast minimalist landscapes of stormy gray, wheat yellow and negative white space, Dyer shows that the fiends and their favorite phenomena are interdependent. The short, squat fiends have the ferrous-red skin of devils, but they don't act maliciously; they realize the impact of their selfishness and reestablish harmony. The wordless closing image of a lone fiend running off, clasping a plate-shaped item, suggests that wholehearted optimism is premature, but doesn't quash the hopefulness of the narrative. Ages 4-up. (May)