Zig and the Magic Umbrella

Pale-blue creature Zig grabs a red umbrella as it floats by his isolated tree home, then flies across nearly wordless spreads. After Zig lands, a yellow bird leads him to a boulder ("Tweet Tweet" coming from behind it), which Zig moves using the umbrella as a lever. Whimsical, detailed acrylic-and-paper collages leave room for contemplation as Zig's adventure comes to a happy, no-longer-lonesome ending.

Small Zig, a creature with pale blue skin and ears on stalks, looks out the curtained window of a house that seems to be inside a blue tree shaped like a lollipop. The tree is isolated in a blue and black landscape, and rain is pelting down. A bright red umbrella comes floating by; Zig grabs it, and they go flying along. “Whoosh! Whee…Where am I going?” The story is told almost wordlessly, through a sequence of illustrations on each double-page spread, sometimes enclosed in panels and sometimes freely floating across the page. Finally (with a “Wow!”), Zig arrives in a land filled with more lollipop-shaped trees, in blues and reds; plants that resemble winter scarves with their fringes pointing up dot the landscape. Despite the many trees, a little yellow bird is the only creature there, and it leads Zig across water (using the red umbrella as a boat), up a cliff (using the umbrella to climb), and up to a not-very-scary-looking sleeping monster. The sounds of “Tweet Tweet” come from behind a boulder blocking an opening, which Zig ingeniously moves using the umbrella again, this time as a lever. The surreal pictures leave lots of room for contemplating questions -- such as: Why is Zig alone? And: why does Zig help the birds? -- and for examining the details in the whimsical, dreamlike acrylic-and-paper collage pictures as Zig’s adventure comes to a happy, and no longer lonesome, ending. susan dove lempke