Rated "Bad" in our old book database. ( )

《Ladies of Light & Ladies Of Darkness, & Ladies of Never-You-Mind,
This is a prayer for a Blueberry Girl.
First, may you Ladies be kind.》

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Not what I expected, but I liked it. This would be a good baby shower gift. ( )

Beautiful and charming, with great rhythm and rhyme. A narrator (Gaiman) asks in a poem-prayer for the three women who represent all women (young, middle-aged, and elderly) to grant the blueberry girl blessings to carry her through the ups and downs of life. Girls of all colors (but nor, admittedly, sizes) romp in imaginary worlds full of fantastic and curious critters. Charles Vess's illustrations and lettering are beautiful, as is the coloring. Some lines might need explanation--that "bad husbands at thirty" will not trouble you, for example. That's a bit more for parents than kids. ( )

I’m a huge fan of Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, especially when they work together, but I found this book to be a bit underwhelming. Both Gaiman’s poetic prose and Vess’ artistic compositions are to be praised, but overall the narrative of the book doesn’t really grab my attention the way that their more structured stories do. The one positive that comes out of this book is that it does hint a little bit at the magic of growing up, even if it misses the mark a touch. There’s an inherent magic in girls and women that I often feel links back to the primeval goddess archetype, and Gaiman and Vess attempt to engage with this magic, but do so in such a toned down way that unless you’re looking it can easily be missed. I know both of these men are capable of bringing out and celebrating the magic of women in a more overt and wonderful way, but maybe the subtlety of a children’s book isn’t quite the right place to do it. ( )