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Reviewed by:
  • Traces
  • Deborah Stevenson
Fox, Paula; Traces; illus. by Karla Kuskin;. Front Street, 2008; 32p ISBN 978-1-932425-43-7 $16.95 Ad Gr. 3-5

"Something, someone was just here. Now there's barely a trace of it . . . " So begins each of several descriptions of the subtle signs left when something passes by, such as the air and water bubbles left by a frog, the sand path of a turtle, or the contrails left by a jet plane. Each trace leads to a lyrical description of the passerby ("Slithering, quivering, curling, straightening, a snake has left a trace in the tall wild grass"). The conceit isn't always successful, since a fox's brush isn't a trace left when he's gone but a part of him when he's here, and the verses move between literal and poetic interpretations, with, for example, kids' shadows and windblown leaves offered as traces of the moved-on kids and wind, respectively, despite their actual simultaneousness. The book also starts out with a turn-the-page guessing-game format on the frog that would have been an intriguing element, but the remaining pages don't follow suit. Still, the compact lines are quietly vivid, with sonorous adjective sequences ("Plump, wattled, warty, croaking") that would be particularly lip-smacking to read aloud. The illustrations are elegant, decorative, and vivid, combining slender, delicate line, smokily pigmented watercolor, and collage components in a variety of textures. Elements usually float across a white background, resulting in a look that recalls the lush intricacy of embroidery. Use this as a bridge between April Pulley Sayre and Joyce Sidman, or just to encourage language arts students to explore their own views of traces.

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