It’s an important moment, both for the characters and for the reader. There they are, all together, fifteen minutes after midnight, ready and unable to reach their destination.
My favorite illustration occurs at a quarter past 12, when Song and her friends face an obstacle. In one picture she is almost completely white, illuminated by the moon. Sometimes she faces us, and sometimes she doesn’t care to. But Barkat gives us enough detail to let our minds run wild - How exactly is this creature bringing tea? How is that one toting a blanket?Īnd every illustration that includes Song seems to show a new side of her, this girl wearing vintage britches and a vest over puffed sleeves her hair, wild and free. We can’t see the colors of the “darling dragonfly” or the “friendly frog,” so we use our imagination. There’s something about pen-and-ink drawings that are an invitation. It feels like stepping inside a fairy tale. Barkat illustrated this story with her favorite Japanese fountain pen. If you’ve read Barkat’s graphic novel The Yellow Wallpaper (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?), you know her style. Some bring surprising gifts, like the “welcoming wolf” who brings a cupcake in a bell jar. Some animals bring an item you might expect, like the “ruffly rabbit” who offers to bring a carrot. Along her journey (by bicycle), she encounters various woodland animals, each wanting to come along and bring a gift to the party. It’s a story about a girl named Song who receives an invitation to a midnight ball in a castle. The Midnight Ball is about more than telling time.
And instead of having to learn with a boring ol’ clock, I would have gotten to learn with illustrations of an antique timepiece. Then I would have learned not only the twelve hours, but also the fifteen-minute mark, and, most importantly, 0:03. I might have learned a bit earlier if I had owned Sara Barkat’s The Midnight Ball. I learned in Spanish class, when we played a game, racing each other to learn our way around a clock en Español. Confession: I did not learn to tell time using an analog clock until middle school.
0 kommentar(er)
