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  • Queen on Wednesday by Gabi Swiatkowska
  • Amy Atkinson
Swiatkowska, Gabi. Queen on Wednesday. written and illus. by Gabi Swiatkowska. Foster/Farrar, 2014. 32p ISBN 978-0-374-37446-4 $17.99 Ad 4-6 yrs.

With nothing to do since Sunday, a bored Thelma decides on Wednesday that she will make herself queen. While her imperial duties at first amuse her, the burden of picking the royal pets, locating a royal palace, and hiring the royal help soon give her a royal headache, prompting her to abdicate the throne in favor of boredom. The prose in this first writing effort from Swiatkowska is as subdued as the languid Thelma, accompanying her search for excitement at a pace that captures her innate ennui; ultimately, though, this is largely a scenario rather than a plot, so Thelma’s boredom is rather overeffectively conveyed. Depicted here with the wide-eyed, formal otherworldliness that has hallmarked Swiatkowska’s previous work as an illustrator, Thelma and her entourage make visually stunning subjects. The paint-and-pencil renderings skillfully employ a muted palette with punches of red, yellow, and blue to capture this surreal-feeling, lackadaisical world; the art also provides humor, as Swiatkowska slyly tucks ever more animals into each scene (the royal staff and the royal pets all trying to sleep in one bed is particularly charming), adding a level of accessibility to the story. The combination of these lighthearted moments with the eerie adultness of the children reads more like an album of daguerreotypes staged by Wes Anderson on a rainy day at the family dacha than a candidate for storytime. Yet, for those children—or perhaps those parents—looking for offbeat fare to relieve their own boredom, this sophisticated exercise in stylization may prove just the ticket.

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