Silly Lilly and the Four Seasons by Agnes Rosenstiehl
(Toon Books)
The second release in Toon Books’ new line of easy reader graphic novels, “Silly Lilly,” is a charming affair by French author/illustrator Agnes Rosenstiehl. In a series of seasonal sketches, a young girl named Lilly is followed through her reactions to the changes.
That’s a funny thing about being a kid — before you are really aware of time, of real change in the sense that an adult is, you are aware of the flow and passing in one very sensual way and that is the shift of seasons. Seasons, like anything else, are relative and will look and feel different according to where you live — at the same time, the basics are generally the same and this is structure we teach children.
Seasons, it seems, are the first formal lesson we give in the cycle of life. Lilly gets silly in the park in spring, the beach in summer, the apple orchard in fall, the snow in winter and the playground in spring, bringing the year full circle and, more importantly, transcribing a year of change for not only the earth, but the girl as well.
Rosenstiehl crafts a simple sketch of a graphic novel here, presenting the idea of sequential storytelling in its most base form without making it a pantomime. There is a crafty underbelly to the humor, with slight story tension being brought out in delicate ways.
“Silly Lilly” is the cutest tour de force imaginable.
