The Jewel Box Ballerinas

November 1, 2007
Gr 1-3-Bibi Branchflower is so rich that she has two of almost everything, including houses and limousines. However, she doesn't have any friends. One day the woman buys a jeweled music box that contains two mechanical ballerinas. The shopkeeper warns her that the sorcerer who created it cursed it so that all who look on the sad-faced figures will experience sorrow. Bibi still insists on purchasing it. She is devoted to the dancers and tries to lift their spirits through jokes and kisses. In an attempt to cheer them up, she takes them on an adventure to Alaska and then to Africa, where she loses them in a market. She frantically searches the village for them, exclaiming that, "I'd give up all I own to have you back again," and sees the tiny dancers standing far up a road. Bibi runs toward them and they begin to smile and grow until they are the size of real girls. Bibi realizes that good friends are all she needs and the book ends with the three characters dancing in a circle. De Varennes's text reads like a parable: readers learn that money cannot buy happiness. Juan's acrylic-and-crayon illustrations create a moody, mysterious tone; subdued hues gradually brighten by the end of the book, and even the angular structure of Bibi's face softens when she discovers happiness. The amusing endpapers display dozens of duplicate items, from mittens to sandwiches to feather dusters. A true celebration of the value of friendship over material goods."Shawn Brommer, South Central Library System, Madison, WI"

Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2008
Althoughits jacket will prime children to expect a ballet story, thisfanciful fableis actually about a rich, materialisticrecluse who turns the other cheek. Bibi buys everything in pairs, from limos to lapdogs, so she cant resist a jewelry box containing twin ballerina figurines. Whenshe notices the figurines sad expressions, her campaign to cheer up thedollshelps them morph intoflesh-and-blood girls. Bibis apparentconviction that tiny statueshave emotions needs more setting up, and the premisethat a fixation on worldlygoodscan be cured byanattachment to a possessionis a bit short on logic.Despite such ragged edges, the theme of magical transformation sparked by love, also central to de Varennes The Sugar Child (2005), has timeless appeal. So, too, doJuans oversize acrylic-and-crayon illustrations, particularly fine in two majestic double-pagespreads that encapsulate Bibis change of heart: one depictsherdour and propietaryinher cavernous mansion; the second, disheveled and jubilant as the ballerinas do their Pinocchio thing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)