In the Half Room by Carson Ellis (review)

The traditional rhyming nighttime benediction takes an enjoyably weird turn in this bedtime story from Ellis (Du Iz Tak?, BCCB 12/16). In the titular half room, everything is cut down to a half: there’s “half table” and “half cat” (just the front half), while half a person (just the right half) reads half a book by the light of the half moon. Then comes “half a knock on half a door” and our reader’s left side arrives, whereupon the two reunite into one and go dance in the moonlight. In true cat fashion, however, the front and back halves of the cat bicker and eventually settle down on the rug together but perversely fail to rejoin. The combination of lulling and disturbing is seductive, and the book’s focus on playful mood makes all the unanswered questions about this strange half world more feature than bug. Compositions shift between focus on individual items and views of the overall scene in yet another echo of Goodnight Moon, and the details are sturdily painted with vigor while the creamy backgrounds enhance the crepuscular flavor. (Adults will also appreciate the joke that the reader is perusing half of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.) The matter-of-fact oddity provides a nursery-rhyme feel and a bit of a twist that will intrigue youngsters more interested in dreaming than sleeping.