The Salamander Room
 Anne Mazer, Steve Johnson Illustrator
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 1991 Borzoi Books
  ISBN: 039482945X


A little boy finds an orange salamander in the woods & thinks of the many things he can do to turn his room into a perfect salamander home.

I remember finding hedgehogs at the bottom of our garden & frogs too. It wasn't until I came to America that I found salamanders & loved it when they ran across my hands.

The Salamander Room is a simple story of a boy who finds, beneath the leaves, a bright & lively creature & brings him home where his mother asks him how he'll take care of his newfound friend.

If a picture tells a thousand words then Steve Johnson's speak volumes. Vivid, compelling & so very magical & real, Brian's adventures & dreams fill the pages with the familiar & the whimsical. I loved the bed Brian made for his friend in his nightstand drawer & the moon & stars on his headboard. Unloading leaves with his dump truck & when the salamander peeks out of Brian's bedroom window, oh, you know you've seen that kind of energy, exhileration & anticipation!

Lovely, lovely closeups of child & friend as they explore their world of bugs & frogs, birds & sunshine, dragonflies & dreams.

A wonderful book of heartwarming visions with a simple, delightful story to tell.

More from Anne Mazer: Watch Me Illustrated by Stacey Schuett & The Yellow Button Illustrated by Judy Pedersen. Anne grew up in a family of writers in upstate New York & later went to the Sorbonne in Paris to study French literature where she started writing.

Steve Johnson is the Illustrator for Anna Smucker's No Star Nights. He was born in White Bear Lake, Minnesota & now lives in Minneapolis with his wife, Lou Fancher, with whom he collaborated for The Salamander Room.
(12/09/01)

Rebecca