TITLE: After the Fall (How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again) Author/Illustrator: Dan Santat Publisher: Roaring Brook Press (2017) Language: English ISBN: 978-1626726826 While we are on the topic of books that heal (see my previous post about Draw the Line), After the Fall is a recent book that's creating huge and well-deserved buzz. Both books are from Roaring Brook Press but couldn't be more different in their approach. While the former is extremely simple with line drawings and only two colour schemes to represent good vs bad feeling, this latest work by Caldecott Medal winner Dan Santat is a rainbow of a recovery story. It is the clever "real story" of Humpty Dumpty's healing. Both books are powerful in their own way and will appeal to a similar age group. All the kings horses and all the kings men, were able to patch Humpty Dumpty up (the delightful picture of Humpty walking out of the Kings County Hospital is proof of his regained health) but on the very next page, we see Humpty lying despondent on the floor of his bedroom, his high bed now impossible to reach. Humpty is racked with anxiety, and he changes his life accordingly. He can't reach the awesome cereal he usually eats, so he makes do with whatever he can find (in drab colours) on the bottom shelf. He devises a way of imagining his former heights by making a paper bird. |
