Letter Lunch

In a series of enigmatic wordless panels, a boy and girl decide they’re hungry and find that their cupboard contains only a glass jar with a single, lonely letter “c” in it. Gesturing to each other, they make a shopping list of consonants and set off, finding some of the letters growing on trees and others at the market, piled high in bins and hanging like sausages. Working in cut-paper collage, Gutiérrez (Picturescape) initially pictures the boy and girl amid interior backgrounds defined by white lines on dark gray; the outdoor scenes feature more color and complexity. When the boy and girl return after their long expedition and dump their letters into a bowl, they make a word that’s incomplete: “dlcs,” it says. The vowels, it turns out, are on the spice rack. While the artwork is frequently lovely and there’s plenty to talk about—Are vowels really the spices of spelling? What’s it like to eat your words?—the children’s metaphorical search to fill their (real) hunger may strike some readers as puzzling and incongruous. Ages 4–7. (Mar.)