Triangle
(The Shapes Trilogy #1)

In the first book of a planned trilogy from the team behind two Caldecott Honor winners (Extra Yarn and Sam and Dave Dig a Hole), Triangle plots some serious mischief. He's a charcoal-colored triangle with sticklike legs and Klassen's famous shifty-eyed stare, and he plans to frighten his friend Square. Triangle sets off through the triangles in his neighborhood, across a wilderness of rocky mounds ("They were shapes with no names," Barnett intones) and on through a lot of squares to Square's house. "I will play my sneaky trick," Triangle announces. He hisses like a snake, Square is terrified, and there's a moment of silent, incandescent fury as Square glares at Triangle across the page. Square chases Triangle home and blocks his door, leaving Triangle in the dark, which frightens him right back. "You see, Triangle," Square crows, "this was my plan all along." Barnett ends with a rhetorical question for readers: "But do you really believe him?" Since the final spread shows Square stuck fast in the triangular doorway, the answer, clearly, is a resounding "No!" Klassen's palette is quiet, his weathered backdrops are elegant, and his comic timing is precisely synched to Barnett's deadpan prose. Triangle fools Square, and the story fools readers, too, as they wait for Square to put Triangle in his place, or for the two to reconcile. Instead, Triangle seems to win this round, even if he does finish the book trapped in his own home. Whereas the humor in Sam and Dave Dig a Hole was subtle and sly, this shape showdown is pure, antic buffoonery. Ages 5-9. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Mar.)

Copyright 2017 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

K-Gr 2—A pair of practical jokes will have readers debating who started it in this picture book from the deadpan duo. Readers first meet Triangle, a simple shape with two large eyes and a sturdy pair of legs. Triangle declares that he's going to play a -sneaky trick- on Square, so he sets off across a backdrop of triangular landmarks, through the slightly wilder land of waterfalls and -shapes with no names,- into a region of squares to the house of Square, a similarly wide-eyed figure. Hiding outside and hissing like a snake, Triangle frightens Square and soon finds himself fleeing across the sparse landscape, with Square in hot pursuit. Returning to the safety of his triangular home, Triangle discovers that Square has a surprise of his own in store. But was Triangle the original instigator, or was turning the tables always Square's plan? Klassen's distinctive style of digital graphite and watercolor illustrations with lots of white space is well suited to the focus on simple shapes and a circular narrative that ends where it began. The horizontal movement from Triangle's abode to Square's house and back follows a clear line, with plenty of visual cues linking the text and illustrations. Both the occasionally repetitive text and the images make this title a good match for emerging readers. The characters convey an appropriate level of shifty expression through the movement of their eyes, and the ambiguous ending will elicit plenty of opinions from young audiences. VERDICT An understated ode to mischief that's sure to please fans of Sam and Dave Dig a Hole.—Chelsea Couillard-Smith, Hennepin County Library, MN

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.