Featured in the following blog post: https://booksbeyondbinaries.blog/2019/01/07/2018-trans-affirming-picture-book-wr... ( )

It is a snow day, and Alice is home with her mother, father, and baby sibling. What to do? Alice, full of ideas ("Idea! ..."), decides to write and illustrate a book. Imaginative, creative kids and exhausted parents alike can enjoy this one. Illustrations were made with pen and ink, watercolor, and "whatever colored pencils and markers Mathew Cordell could find from his kids' stash of art supplies," all on a white background. Alice's story pages appear on hand-drawn lined paper of light yellow. ( )

It's a Snow Day, and Alice wants to play. Declaring herself King Alice - king, not queen, she tells her father - her initial ideas (making sparkly muffins, prettifying her dad) aren't greeted with much enthusiasm by her family. Then she proposes making a book about the adventures of King Alice and her brave knights, and everyone - her mother and father, and her baby sibling - get in on the act...

The latest picture-book from author/illustrator Matthew Cordell, who won the Caldecott Medal last year (2018) for his Wolf in the Snow, King Alice is clearly meant as a tribute to the all-important role of imaginative play and storytelling in the life of a young child. Somehow, although I appreciated the story themes, and (as always) found Cordell's somewhat scratchy style of artwork quite amusing, I couldn't quite warm up to the book. It felt somewhat disjointed, alternating between the main narrative and the chapter-asides of the book Alice was writing. Others may react differently of course, so if you're in the market for a new picture-book about imaginative play and storytelling, this one might be a possibility. ( )