Toys, Dolls & Puppets

Black Meets White

Name: Black Meets White
Author: Justine Fontes
ISBN: 9780763619336

by Justine Fontes, Geoff Waring

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Overview

Crisp, die-cut artwork and a spare, sprightly text lure readers on a playful exploration of opposites. Purr-fect!

What happens when Black meets White? They make polka dots ("That tickles!" Black giggles.), a checkerboard, stripes, wiggles, and more. And when Black and White come together, get ready for a big-eyed, whiskered surprise! With clever diecuts, flaps, and a final, satisfying tab, the mischievous BLACK MEETS WHITE proves that opposites can be attractive indeed.

Synopsis

Crisp, die-cut artwork and a spare, sprightly text lure readers on a playful exploration of opposites. Purr-fect!

Publishers Weekly

For the child who has ever wondered what happens when one color is mixed with another, this interactive tale demystifies that question by putting it in black and white-literally. Fontes personifies the hues, "colorfully" illustrating what transpires when they join in harmony. Her playful language enables the colors to embody feelings, actions and other animate qualities. " `That tickles!' Black giggled," when polka dots tumble in; and, when a checkerboard emerges from the dots, " `Oh, that's lovely!' White exclaimed." Black and White act much like precocious children as they frolic and play together. A cutout cloud and foldout stars add a tactile element, inviting little fingers to explore bold imagery that can appear somewhat abstract or larger than life. As the plot crescendos, readers will quickly turn the pages. And yet the story ends on a quiet note, the final poetic verses reading much like the colors' creation, Gray, which Waring paints as a contented feline ("soft as dawn/ gentle as a cloud/ cool as marble.../ lovely as a sleeping cat"). Readers can help close the cat's eyes by pulling on its tail and thereby wind down the story, making this tale a smart choice for bedtime. Ages 1-4. (July) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Justine Fontes

Justine Fontes says, "After briefly wanting to be a cow, because I thought it would be peaceful, I decided instead to become a writer. I figured that working in publishing might give me a clue about how to get published. It also led to meeting my husband, Ron, a lifelong storyteller in words and pictures. Together we have written more than four hundred children's books." This is her first book with Candlewick Press.

Geoff Waring is a graphic designer in London. BLACK MEETS WHITE is his first book with Candlewick Press.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Children's Literature

This nine inch square book of mixed paper manipulations contains a few cut-outs of different shapes—several lift-the-flaps and one pull tab, all adding up to nothing much at all. One look at the book and you have seen all there is and learned nothing new. It begins with a page of solid black with eight cut outs in the shape of stars revealing only black underneath. When the page is turned the star cut-outs are shown against white paper and the black sheet shows a large white circular sliver, which is never identified. The next double-page is light blue with what is probably a cloud formation (never identified as such), and when the white cloud flap is turned, the color is identified as white. On the next page, with no explanation for why, the background color is again black with white circles of various sizes. When that page is turned it becomes evenly-sized polka dots. This turns into a checkerboard on the next page. Keeping with its theme of not having anything make sense, stripes appear on the following page with meaningless touches of magenta, blue, and gray. On the last two pages the black-and-white have morphed into a gray cat and a pink mouse, both of whom close their eyes when a tab is pulled. The idea that black meets white without changing, and that when they are mixed together they become gray, will not be made clear to the targeted readership by this book. 2005, Candlewick Press, Ages 1 to 4.
—Eleanor Heldrich

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 2-A novelty book with some die-cuts and lift-the-flap pages. The images are computer-generated and are mainly in black and white, with touches of pink, blue, and gray. The text consists of a sentence or two per page. "First there was BLACK/dark as night, cool, mysterious." Then white is introduced. The two collide, creating a page full of polka dots. With the turn of a page, the dots morph into a checkerboard pattern, then stretch out to form stripes. The colors eventually come together to create a smiling gray cat, sound asleep with a white-and-pink mouse curled up between its tail and body. There is not much text, or even a plot to speak of, but the layout is clever and creative. The cat-and-mouse element does not necessarily stand alone, but it would pair nicely with other concept books such as Ed Young's Seven Blind Mice (Philomel, 1992) or Ellen Stoll Walsh's Mouse Paint (Harcourt, 1989).-Roxanne Burg, Orange County Public Library, CA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Plainly intended as a follow-up to the several board-book introductions to black and white, not to mention Little Blue and Little Yellow, this pairs Black ("dark as night, cool, mysterious") with White ("bright, clean, plain as day"). It's a lyrical love match that moves from abstract to concrete, through clouds and stars and polka dots to a checkerboard, stripes and finally twirling ribbons that meld into gray-all assisted by die-cut pages, holes and a large tab that pulls down the eyelids of both a cat and a mouse on the final spread. An occasional glimpse of red or pink makes the neutral colors even more vivid, and Jones's sturdy, sensitive paper engineering further enhances the presentation's rhythm and energy. This color study will definitely get-and survive-repeat visits. (Picture book. 3-5)