Seeing-Eye Willie - Hardcover

Grade 1-3 --An unusual book on homelessness that draws upon a child's fantasy to bridge the gap between idle curiosity and true concern for others. Willie is a vagrant who sits in front of the neighborhood stationery store. The narrator is a redheaded girl with an overactive imagination, who spins a wildly inventive scenario about the man. In an action-packed, staccato-paced, free-association style of storytelling, she describes Willie as a baby who crawls around the world, meets several exotic creatures, and collects the odd items he displays as an adult. The girl's innocent but unfounded tale accords Willie's unknown beginnings a dignity not found in the equally unsubstantiated theories of the town gossips. Gottlieb's jazzy illustrations have an untutored, naive quality as fanciful as the story, while achieving an artfully undisciplined casualness suited to the child's earnest ramblings. The pages brim with bright greens and yellows, deep reds and purples, purposefully applied in the flat, unshaded manner of crayon drawings. Several different typefaces, some free-hand writing, and the unstructured type layout reinforce the childlike freedom of the story. Absurdly whimsical touches relieve the tension without trivializing the subject. Gottlieb gives a dignified and compelling treatment of a perplexing, distressing subject that may provide an oblique, but less disturbing, avenue for discussion than more realistic treatments of the problem. --Dorothy Houlihan, formerly at White Plains Public Library, NY
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In a deceptively simple format, a girl tells the tale--her version, that is--of a homeless man. Seeing Eye Willie, formally known as William Durocher, is an ever-present figure in front of Spike's Stationery Store, with his eye patch, embroidered Chinese slippers, flute and "dried-up snakeskin . . . around his neck." Stories about this colorful character abound among the townspeople, but none matches the vibrant imaginings of the young narrator. With perfectly kidlike logic, she flies Willie back through time to his childhood and whisks him on a world-wide whistle-stop tour from Africa to India to China. In these diverse locales young Willie encounters various talking animals and receives gifts that will remain with him in adulthood. Gottlieb's ( Big Dog ; My Stories by Hildy Calpurnia Rose ) distinctive naive artwork, resonating with vitality and optimism, accompanies this many-layered story. Together text and illustrations question one of the modern world's ills without moralizing or offering pat solutions; the result is an unusual, challenging and thoroughly winning picture book. Ages 6-9.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.