The Tub People - Hardcover

Kindergarten-Grade 3-- A deceptively simple story about seven small wooden dolls (a grandma, a boy and his parents, a dog, a doctor, and a policeman). They coexist with people, first as objects for bathtime and then, after the boy gets stuck in the drain, as windowsill decorations. But there's a spookiness, a surreality about the manner of their interactions that invites readers to use them allegorically. The temptation to perceive the actions of these dolls as a family set in a political state that severely limits their lives is strong. Egielski's crisply delineated, deceptively simple scenes create a visual world that adds considerably to the surrealism. There is no question about the inanimateness of these slickly painted, clothespinlike figures. But--with dots and a few lines as facial clues, can we be "reading" their thoughts? Close-ups are used to make a reasonably scaled world for these figures. Thus patterns of shadows, soap foam, quilt, and tools are blown up to take on new identities. Pictures and words interact in ways that magnetize readers, causing them to linger over a page and to turn back to test a theory of meaning. --Kenneth Marantz, Art Education Department, Ohio State University, Columbus
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