Chloe and the Lion

This is probably my new favorite book. The detail, the illustrations, the setup to the main struggle, the dialogue, the 4th wall break, and the story in general are all pure gold. I legitimately laughed out loud while reading this. It's a story about an author and an illustrator arguing over their story, and the hero ends up being the lead character. This book is so meta and incredible and I've never read anything like it. Some of it will go over children's heads (shoutouts to Frankenstein and Little Red), but even kids can understand the humor behind an illustrator drawing things to torment the author and the author writing things to torment the illustrator. This book is brilliant.

Mac the writer and Adam the artist disagree about the direction the story should take so Mac has Adam eaten by the lion and tries to get a new illustrator in. Chloe knows that Mac needs Adam and convinces him to not only allow Adam to come back but the lion to spit up Adam as well.

There are so many great jokes here including a Frankenstein reference, the breakdown of the fourth wall, and the illustration techniques are really interesting and in a good way. I really enjoyed this book.

This isn’t a picture book so much as it’s a mixed-media morality tale costumed as a comedy routine and pressed like a jack-in-the-box into two-dimensional pages. Breaking the fourth wall, a clay model of the author introduces himself as well as the illustrator’s clay stand-in, and then, straight from the illustrator’s pen, readers meet the titular Chloe, the drawing who is said to be “the main character of the book.” In reality, Chloe and her rather underdeveloped adventures are, thankfully, not the main attraction. That would be the screwball comedy of errors starring the author and the illustrator who have different visions for Chloe’s story. Children will appreciate the self-conscious frustration the author feels when, show more having fired his illustrator, he realizes he isn’t so good at the drawing side. See kids, grown-ups want to give up sometimes, too. But he doesn’t. Because drawing-Chloe steps into the spotlight to say that, in effect, you can’t walk out on your own story. Ultimately a tale of perseverance, humility, and cooperation, the reader’s understanding of these messages — as well as some of the humor — will obviously depend on the reader’s maturity, and maybe mash-up creations like this could encourage older children and teens to feel comfortable picking up “picture” books. All the while, younger children will be fully satiated from the visual feast these guys serve up. A win-win for everyone, Chloe included. show less

This book works on so many levels: explicit play with the role of author and illustrator within the plot; multiple voices; dialogue; character development; multi-layered plot lines; toying with fairy tale tropes; interacting with live theater/drama on the print page; multiple illustrator points of view; its simultaneous appeal to adults and children. I could go on and on. This is the first 5 I've given since I started my LibraryThing logging. I read the book because I've heard it's getting a lot of award buzz; now I hope those awards deliver so that this book finds its way to so many others--young and young at heart.

Nobody does off-the-wall, slightly cracked humor like Mac Barnett and Adam Rex. Chloe is identified early on as the main character in the book, but it's really Mac, who learns an important lesson about teamwork. When I shared this book with my husband, I giggled over and over again and kept stopping to really enjoy the art. Rex's art has multiple levels and the artist's note on the CIP page includes a laundry list of materials and mediums: basswood, balsa wood, oil and acrylic paints, pencil, Sculpey clay, modified doll clothing, toilet paper (?! - where? maybe the giant letters?), photography and Photoshop. I will say that I think very few children will actually get the joke when Chloe's looking for help against the lion and approaches show more an old woman with a pitchfork who only goes "after monsters who've been emotionally wounded by their mad-genius creators," but it delighted me! I don't think I'd use this with preschool kids, but I imagine it would be a great hit with grade school kids particularly if guided to think about the creative process and how they'd create their own stories. show less

This is an adorable and funny story with extremely imaginative illustrations. The author, Mac Barnett, wants Chloe to encounter a lion in the forest. But the illustrator, Adam Rex, decides a dragon would be cooler. So they get into an argument in the middle of the story and Mac fires him. Then the new illustrator, Hank Blowfeather, takes over, and his lion eats Adam. But Mac doesn't think Hank's lion looks scary enough. Hank suggests if he really wants him to be scary, he should make him a dragon because that would be cooler. So Mac fires him, too. Mac tried illustrating the book himself, but did a very poor job of it. Chloe told Mac his artwork was terrible. Finally Mac called Adam inside the lion's stomach and apologized. So Chloe show more went to find help to get Adam out of the lion. No one could help, so Chloe came up with a plan. She had Mac draw the lion. And his drawing was so awful the lion would do anything to get himself drawn properly again. So he coughed Adam up. Mac tried to end the story there but Chloe got very annoyed until Mac wrote a proper ending. show less

I had to read this book after I read an interview with these two guys that cracked me up--this is their seventh book together and they've had plenty of time to work on their slapstick comedy. .Much of which is carried over into this book. "Creative differences" nearly end the book before it gets started, but with much silliness and great fun, the book is finished and everyone gets to ride the merry-go-round. This is a great book about learning to listen to each other and support each other in a group project. I'll be sending it to my "grands" very, very soon.