Suzy Lee

Chosen as one of the Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2008 by The New York Times, this charming wordless picture-book by Korean artist Suzy Lee tells the story of a young girl's adventure at the beach. Chasing the receding waves, and being chased by them in turn, the girl splashes and cavorts along the shore, by turns delighted with and frightened by her oceanic playmate, which leaves her a parting gift...

After finding Mirror, another of Suzy Lee's wordless picture-books, just show more delightful, I fully expected to be charmed by Wave, and in many respects, I was not disappointed. There is the same sense of imagination and fun here, as in the other book, where a girl plays a game with her reflection. The sense of movement in Wave, the feeling of both menace and delight - after all, it is only toward the end that the reader discovers that the mother has been standing nearby the entire time - make it very involving.

That said, if you are going to tell a story with pictures alone, then it is very important indeed that you get your page layout and book design right, and someone really dropped the ball on this one. There were a number of two-page spreads where important pieces of the artwork were swallowed in the gutter. This was particularly frustrating in the scene in which girl confronts wave, her hand held up, doing... something that can't be seen. Without such a serious flaw, this might have been a four-star book for me. With it, it gets three. show less

Korean picture-book artist Suzy Lee, whose previous wordless picture-books, Wave and Shadow, were both chosen as New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books of the Year, returns to the form in Lines, a gorgeous exploration of lines (naturally), ice-skating, and learning to start over, when one has made a mistake. The girl depicted in Lee's artwork swoops and swirls over the ice, making lines with her skates. Her fall is mirrored by Lee herself, in a meta-fictional move, as the artwork show more shows a crumpled piece of paper, directly after the fall. But then the girl notices other skaters, and is helped to her feet by one of them...

As someone who greatly admires Lee's work, I picked up Lines fully expecting to enjoy it, and I was not disappointed. There is such a sense of energy and motion in her illustrations here, that one almost feels as if one is zipping along on the ice as well! As always, I appreciate artists who aren't afraid of the white space on the page, and am always struck by how immediate and powerful Lee's pictures are, despite (or perhaps because of) their simplicity. The sparing use of color here - the limited bits of red used in depicting the girl-skater's hat - is also astute, creating a truly wintry feeling, while the lines themselves are sometimes quite beautiful. I particularly liked when the skater's swoops and swirls created a design that almost looked like music. Recommended to Suzy Lee fans, to those seeking wordless picture-books, or to anyone looking for stories about skating and/or trying again, when at first one fails. show less

Korean children's book artist Suzy Lee - whose Wave was selected by the New York Times as one of the Best Illustrated Children’s Books 2008 - delivers another astonishing wordless story in Mirror! A young girl, spying herself in a mirror, begins to play a game with her reflection: making faces, dancing joyfully, and generally hamming it up. But when the girl and her reflection start to go their separate ways, and their actions become less harmonious, there are some surprising show more results...

Although I am not always a huge fan of wordless picture-books - I can be won over, but it takes something pretty extraordinary - I thought that this made an engaging story. I can recall playing some silly games in front of the mirror myself, when I was a girl, so the images here really translated well for me. I liked the simplicity of Lee's art, which looks like it was done in black pencil, with some orange accents. I also really liked the design of the book, with facing pages representing the "real" world and the mirror one, and with large swathes of each page completely blank. Finally, I appreciated the fact that there was no "happy ending" here - just a brief, joyful interlude. All in all, I was very impressed, and will definitely make an effort to find some of Lee's other books! show less

This is pretty cute. At first I thought it was just going to be a fun book (nothing wrong with that), but I did find something a little deeper in it. While playing with the waves on the beach, the little girl eventually gets drenched by a big one (as one does). While at first she sits there quite upset at the whole ordeal, she then realizes that there are pretty shells all around her. To me, this says that we never truly know what's hiding underneath or behind something. This could be a good show more thing (like finding pretty shells) or a bad thing (like driving over a bag in the street only to discover it was full of broken glass that has now left you with flat tires). I could go much deeper with this analysis, but I'll leave it there lol.

I really liked the art in this one. The author/artist is Korean, and I can definitely see a distinctly Asian style in the art; I especially liked the look of the seagulls. show less