The Land of Neverbelieve (review)

In this faux guidebook to the island of Neverbelieve, Messenger provides readers with detailed illustrations of the land’s flora, fauna, and geographical features along with the story of his spellbinding discovery of the island and its subsequent disappearance (the island can sprout legs and move) after he left to check on his boat. A topographical overview of the island is presented first, in which the reader can note the locations of the animals and vegetation featured on the following pages. The landscape and its inhabitants have surprising, topsy-turvy characteristics, such as the Cabbage Moth Tree that produces cabbage moths, rather than leaves, on the ends of its branches, the Octofrog that is part octopus and part frog, and Book Mountain, an enormous pile of “book-shaped rock formations” that read themselves aloud at night. There’s not much plot here, but the project is a deeply appealing one, and the details are weird and amusing. Creative kids with an eye for the quirky will eagerly spend a long time poring over the meticulous illustrations, expertly rendered in watercolor and colored pencil, and jauntily formal captions. Foldout flaps offer even more detail and opportunity for closer inspection of some of the island’s organic and geologic offerings. Both art and text effectively echo the scholarly tone of old botanical texts, and the book as a whole seems tailor-made to inspire kids to design their own strange and astonishing lands.