The Queen in the Cave
by Júlia Sardà ; illus. by the author
Primary, Intermediate     Candlewick Studio    64 pp.     g
5/22     978-1-5362-2054-4     $19.99

Franca and her younger sisters, Carmela and Tomasina, do everything together, so when one day Franca gets a “funny feeling,” Carmela and Tomasina decide that they too feel strange and follow her confident lead into the unknown—perhaps to find the “queen in the cave” of Franca’s dream. Into the woods they go, where the familiar world turns strange and the forest creatures—ants, caterpillars, moths, snails—become huge, surreal, and exotic. “Are we dreaming now?” Tomasina wonders. “I’m more awake than I’ve ever been,” Franca answers, and when the girls arrive at the queen in the cave (to discover that she’s a wilder ­version of Franca), it’s she alone who stays for the party. In imagery reminiscent of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , Sardà poignantly evokes the moment an eldest sister pursues a way her sisters can’t go, a moment of growth and change that’s reflected in the flamboyant, stylish disorientation of her illustrations. Appropriately, the book brings picture book and short story together; it’s a work on the cusp, as if its very mode connotes transition.

From the September/October 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.