A girl moves with her family to the city, when her mom gets a new job there. She misses the country but meets a friend who helps her start a balcony garden. It is magical and believable. ( )

First of all, you need to view the book's boards. Either take the dust jacket off or, if you have a library copy with a mylar cover, open the book carefully so the jacket gaps away from the book to allow you to peek the boards. They're a plant green linen foil-stamped with a somewhat different image than the dust jacket. Gorgeous.

As for the rest of the book...

The illustrations appear to have been done in colored pencil, although the art note at the end specifies that they were rendered in pencil but colored digtally. Pretty good digital work; it looks just like colored pencil lines. Castrillón employs a more limited color palette post-move (in the city) than pre-move, at least until the plants start blooming, at which point the yellows and greens and oranges reappear. The palette is subdued again when depicting any neighbors who have not yet started growing plants / experiencing the joy of the plants.

The arrangement of the vignettes within the spreads will help teach kids sequential literacy.

The book is mostly wordless. The few words it does include are more decorative or descriptive than essential to the story, although they enhance your understanding of the story. Kids who don't read yet (or don't read English) will still have a good understanding of what the words mean or are saying. ( )

Lovely art; almost wordless; sophisticated storyline ( )

Melissa Castrillón, the talented illustrator who contributed the artwork for Nina Laden's Yellow Kayak and If I Had a Little Dream, here presents her own picture-book. Mostly wordless, save for the occasional theme word - "Home," "Good-bye," "Hope," "Bloom," "Friends," and then "Home" again - the story here follows a young girl as she moves from her home in the country to a new place in the city. Sad at first, the girl plants a balcony garden that soon spreads all over her neighborhood, leading to a friendship that make her feel at home again...

Having greatly appreciated Castrillón's work in the titles mentioned above, I picked up The Balcony with every expectation of enjoyment, and I was not disappointed. I find her illustrations lovely, with a beautiful color palette, and an almost tapestry-like folk-art feeling to them. They are more than enough to carry the story, when taken with the occasional word that points the reader in the right direction. The story itself reminds me a bit of Peter Brown's The Curious, which also featured the theme of greening an urban space, and which was a welcome association. The design of the book - tale and narrow in dimension, decorative endpapers - added to my enjoyment as well. Recommended to fellow Melissa Castrillón fans, to those who enjoy (mostly) wordless picture-books, and to anyone seeking children's stories about moving and/or the importance of green spaces in urban environments. ( )