A publisher does not a good book make. However, there are some book publishers who are so consistent in their ability that it primes the pump for your expectations. Tra Publishing is one like that. Their books have an odd, slightly unfamiliar feeling about them, but not too much that it’s incomprehensible to its young audiences. A Home for Felix is familiar, but strange, with big, dreamy illustrations that will make early readers happy and keep the older people reading it entertained.
Dang, that’s a tall order, and you just wanted a children’s illustrated book to be a children’s illustrated book. The pages in A Home for Felix don’t waste any space in its four corners. It tells a big story in a short amount of time. Emile is a rabbit who lives a simple life in the country. He’s got crops that he tends to and is quite content in its simplicity. One day another younger rabbit wanders onto his farm and falls asleep under a large cabbage.
Emile is used to being alone, but invites the young rabbit to stay with him. One day, he confides in Emile that he’s an orphan and doesn’t have a name. Emile gives him the name Felix, and the two friends, who also have a father/son relationship, continue farming their crops. When Felix is wondering where he’ll go and what he’ll do in the long-term he’s surprised by his own bedroom in Felix’s house; thus the title, A Home for Felix. There is more to the book than what I’ve outlined, but the details are in its brevity and illustrations.
When readers first meet Emile, it’s done with three sentences over two pages. The illustrations on them are vast and dreamy, showing a surreal life where he lives under giant artichoke trees and human-sized carrots. The next two pages are even briefer, showing a close-up of Emile and a curious crow. When the soon-to-be-named Felix enters the story, the illustrations concentrate on their friendship and familial relationship. But even then, the illustrations convey a sense of observing, as opposed to telling. You don’t want to get too close for fear of getting in the way of the story. When the pictures zoom in closer you’re thankful to see them from a closer vantage point.
There is a pure sense of wonder and hope in A Home for Fleix that you don’t see often in illustrated books. Older readers will momentarily think about how implausible it is for a child to wander into someone’s life and the legal complications it could yield. Younger readers might think about them, but they’ll be easily distracted by the scope and child-like innocence that the book projects. You adults will easily fall into that category too, if you allow yourself to.
Don’t read any message into A Home for Felix. There certainly could be a message, but it also could simply be an illustrated book that tells a complex story in a simple way. It’s one of those illustrated books that allows kids to think about the story for themselves. There are certainly guidelines, but the open-ended, artsy quality will reward readers who dig into A Home for Felix.
A Home for Felix is by Stephanie Demasse-Pottier with illustrations by Laura Kientzler and is published by Tra Publishing and distributed by Simon & Schuster.
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