Carolinda Clatter! (review)

A tortured giant, worn out by his unrequited love for the moon, eventually lies down and falls asleep. Over time, he becomes covered with grass and forests, and people come to live on the spot that was his stomach. Ever mindful of the legend that the land they live on is actually a sleeping giant, they are an obsessively quiet people, until the obstreperous Carolinda Clatter is born. Her incessant noise wakes the giant, and the townspeople insist that she must be the one to appease him, lest his rumbles and grumbles unsettle the land under their feet. Carolinda sings to assuage her fear as she approaches the giant's mouth, only to find that her music makes him want to get up and dance. She convinces him that he has a responsibility to the things that live on him, that the moon now loves him after all, and that if he will go back to sleep, she will sing to him every night. Though he is vague about the setting, Gerstein captures all of the traditional elements that go into much giant-centered folklore—a slumbering giant/mountain, cowed villagers, and an audacious heroine who will release them from their plight—and his watercolor illustrations of the pre- and post-somnolent giant are effective in setting the mood. The arrival of Carolinda Clatter, however, is heralded with increasing clutter in the compositions that significantly dampens their effectiveness and produces more scribbly confusion than playful humor, unfortunately just as the plot begins to flatten out. The rotund and oversized Carolinda herself, with her gapped teeth and hair that looks like extruded Play-doh, is likely to be more offputting than appealing to many readers, but her quirky bravery will win some hearts, and the giant's woeful tale will spark imaginative ideas about the ground beneath our feet.