In the Half Room

From the Caldecott Honor–winning creator of Home and Du Iz Tak? comes a gorgeous and quirky tale of an extraordinary room where everything is a half.

The half room is full of half things. A half chair, a half cat, even half shoes – all just as nice and weird and friendly as whole things. When half a knock comes on half a door, who in the world could it be? With her trademark touch of magic and whimsy, Caldecott Honor winner Carson Ellis explores halves and wholes in an ingenious and thought-provoking picture book. The lightly rhyming text is soothing yet spirited, revealing the many absurdities and possibilities to be discovered in this irresistibly fanciful home. Ink and gouache illustrations featuring wry detail and velvety textures conjure a dreamlike mood while leaving space for imagining. A celebration of the surreal and the serendipitous, and the beauty of the two together, this brilliant picture book will have readers seeing the joys of halves with whole new eyes.

In rhymes and nighttime interiors that recall Goodnight Moon, Caldecott Honoree Ellis (Du Iz Tak?) imagines a space in which everything is neatly divided down the middle...The woman’s mid-story reunion, so profound and complete, may for some relegate the ending to distraction, but by centering the fragmentary, Ellis offers a strange, thrilling logic and invites readers to engage with a concept fundamental to children’s experience: liminality. Publishers Weekly (starred review)
In the Half Room isn’t a sequel to “Goodnight Moon,” and it’s not about dreams, per se, but it’s suffused with a playful dream logic that likely would have tickled Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, not to mention Lewis Carroll and René Magritte. The writer-illustrator Carson Ellis won a 2017 Caldecott Honor for her story told in gibberish, “Du Iz Tak?” — and this new one shares its predecessor’s trust in children’s willingness to be simultaneously puzzled and delighted, to let a story come to them. The New York Times Book Review
In cadences reminiscent of Margaret Wise Brown’s soothing narratives, Ellis introduces the interior: “Half a window / Half a door / Half a rug on half a floor.” True and near rhymes jostle gently in the lulling text...Visually charming and a bit disarming, this invites dialogue between caregivers and young children. Kirkus Reviews
It’s a genuinely offbeat story embracing absurdity, and cat lovers everywhere will easily accept the asocial cat-halves refusing to “shoop” and merely falling asleep next to each other. A wholly entertaining tale. The Horn Book
With a moonlit setting and simple, repetitive phrasing, Caldecott Honor-winner Ellis' (Du Iz Tak?, 2016) latest offering gives a nod to Goodnight Moon...Silly and sweet, this comforting book will be wholly embraced by children as a new bedtime favorite. Booklist

Carson Ellis is the author and illustrator of the bestselling picture books Home and Du Iz Tak? (a Caldecott Honor book and the recipient of an E.B. White Read Aloud Award). She has illustrated a number of books for children including bestsellers The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, The Composer Is Dead by Lemony Snicket, and The Wildwood Chronicles by Colin Meloy. Carson Ellis lives in Portland, USA, with her husband, Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, and their two sons.

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