Anything Is Possible

by Giulia Belloni, Marco Trevisan (Illustrator)

Overview

A Teachers' Pick for ages 4 to 7! In this whimsical tale about a pragmatic wolf and an imaginative sheep, we learn that even the impossible can be made possible through friendship and perseverance.



The sheep in this story is a dreamer, while her friend the wolf has a more practical disposition. One day the sheep runs to the wolf with an idea. She wants to build a flying machine! But the wolf tells her it's impossible. Eventually, however, the sheep's dream gets the better of the wolf's doubts, and they begin to work on the project together. Through perseverance and the process of trial and error, the sheep and wolf manage to create a winning design, brought to life by architecturally and mathematically inspired paper collage art. At the end of this whimsical tale, even the wolf has to admit that anything is possible!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781926973913
Publisher:	OWLKIDS BOOKS
Publication date:	08/13/2013
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	AD540L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 7 Years

About the Author

Giulia Belloni is the author of the play La verità, o quasi and of several picture books, including Diverso destino, Nell’aria, and un désir inavoué in her native Italian. She is on the technical jury for the selection of the Campiello Giovanni literary award. She lives in Padua, Italy. Marco Trevisan studied mathematics and illustration simultaneously. He works as a freelance illustrator, collaborating with graphic design studios, magazines, and periodicals. His work has been selected in prestigious national competitions, and in 2010 the Città del Sole designated him the Illustrator of the Year. Born in Belluno, he now lives in a village in the Italian Dolomites.

Editorial Reviews

A dreamer of a sheep wants to build a flying machine to get a bird’s-eye view of the world. “They can choose how they look at things: from far away, from up close, or from somewhere in between,” she thinks. Her friend, a wolf, is skeptical (“You spend too much time watching the birds in the sky”), but he can’t resist the sheep’s can-do attitude, even after two initial prototypes fail in major ways. Trevisan pictures their collaboration in spare, editorial-style collaged images on crisp white space; much of the fun comes from seeing the contrast between the streamlined wolf and sheep and other visual elements made from elaborately decorated paper (the long tail of their first contraption is densely scribbled with mathematical equations). Even the cropping of the images is witty and stylish: one spread conveys a crash by showing bits of the two passengers, a wheel, and a wing falling beyond the pages’ margins. Unfortunately, the minimal text is literal and leaden, so while the message about persistence comes through, readers get little insight into the nature of this improbable friendship. Ages 4–7. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"...promotes the concepts of teamwork and perseverance."
School Library Journal, August 1, 2013

"Trevisan pictures their collaboration in spare, editorial-style collaged images on crisp white space..."
Publisher's Weekly, August 1, 2013

"Lovely bookmaking nicely complements this charming, light-as-a-feather tale of friendship and successful dreaming."
Kirkus, June 15, 2013

"A whimsical offering of perseverance and friendship..."
Booklist Review, August 1, 2013

"This book interestingly captures and combines a modern spirit with a very old-world style."
Christian Library Journal, October/November 2013

From the Publisher

PreS-Gr 2—This short, slight tale promotes the concepts of teamwork and perseverance. When Sheep sees a flock of birds flying overhead, she wishes she could join them. She gets an idea, runs to see Wolf, and asks him to work with her on building a flying machine. He's skeptical at first, but eventually Sheep prevails. Their first design has fabric wings that rip mid flight, sending them tumbling to the ground. They try balloons, but the birds pop them. Sheep's last idea has her fashioning a dragon's head, while Wolf cuts out a tail. This time the plan works, and off they fly together. The mixed-media illustrations are abstract and creative; they use paper cutouts, ink, and pencil. Unfortunately, there is not much of a plot here. In addition, Sheep and Wolf's final design presumably works because the cutout dragon scares away the birds, but that is not totally clear from the pictures.—Roxanne Burg, Orange County Public Library, CA

School Library Journal

A ruminating ruminant puts a wolf to work in service of flight. A sheep longs to be able to look at things as the birds do, "from far away, from up close, or from somewhere in between," so she engages a wolf friend to help build a flying machine. Skeptical at first, he finally agrees to work on the project. Their first flight fails when the gorgeous wings of the flying machine designed by the wolf prove too fragile. Next, the sheep attaches helium balloons, but birds dive in and pop the balloons. She devises a clever solution, and together, she and the wolf take flight. Belloni's spare and simple story, translated from the Italian, offers just enough framework for the illustrations, and it has a solemn syntax that allows the humor of the sheep's ambition to come through. The figures of both sheep and wolf are slightly abstract and somewhat angular, set against a white background—they call to mind the woodland creatures in Jon Klassen's I Want My Hat Back (2011). Sophisticated yet nicely in balance with the brief text, Trevisan's art includes patterns that suggest fabric collage, along with blocks of mathematical notation used as decoration on the endpapers and in the sweep of the hill from which the pair takes off. Lovely bookmaking nicely complements this charming, light-as-a-feather tale of friendship and successful dreaming. (Picture book. 2-6)

Kirkus Reviews