The Neighbors
Author/Illustrator: Einat Tsarfati
Age range: 4-8
Reviewer: Jeanette Perkins aka Beeba
A young girl climbs the seven stories to her apartment and pauses outside each of her neighbors’ doors. Based on their front doors, she imagines what goes on in that apartment. She is convinced the entrance that is always dark hides the home of a vampire and the door that smells like pickled fish houses an adventurous pirate. Each spread reveals—in lush detail—the wilds of the girl’s imagination, from a high-flying circus to an underwater world and everything in between. When the girl arrives at her own boring apartment, she sighs and laments at the ordinariness of her own home compared to the exciting action in the other apartments. But are her parents really as uninteresting as they seem? Read the end of the book to find out.
The illustrations were drawn digitally and then colored with Photoshop. Each page is very busy with lots of quirky details to discover. As a fun bonus, you see a poster in the beginning of the book for the girl’s missing guinea pig. Try finding the elusive pet in each of her neighbor’s apartments. Quite a challenge!
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About the author:
Einat Tsarfati graduated with honors from the Visual Communication department at the Bezabel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. She is a freelance editorial illustrator as well as the illustrator of books for children, including An After Bedtime Story.
About the reviewer:
Jeanette Perkins is the grandmother of two adorable grandsons. She lives in beautiful St Pete Beach, FL. Jeanette is a product reviewer for GRAND and is looking forward to reviewing lots of new and useful products for all us grandparents.
If you have a product for boomer grandparents and or their grandkids, tell us all about it in an email to editor@grandmagazine.com.