I Can Fly

May 1, 2003
I Can Fly by Ruth Krauss, illus. by Mary Blair, first published in 1951, features another solitary child in imaginary play, but the tone here is sillier. A rhyming text boasts that the girl can do anything that a variety of animals can do; for example, as she eats celery: "Crunch crunch crunch/ I'm a goat out to lunch." The artwork contrasts her antics with the animals she imitates in flatly patterned, stylized shapes that owe much to 1950s-era animation.

July 1, 2003
A large-format jacketed hardcover, this "deluxe" edition of a Little Golden Book features an imaginative little girl imitating a host of animals: "A cow can moo. I can too. / I can squirm like a worm. / I can grab like a crab." The illustrations are just as energetic as the book's heroine.

(Copyright 2003 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)