The Secret Room - Hardcover

Though the exact setting is unspecified (Turkey? the Central Asian steppes? Egypt? Greece?), this tale is nonetheless imbued with very strong atmosphere. A liberal sprinkling of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern architectural elements (minarets, onion-domes, brightly tiled roofs, window moldings right out of Aladdin ) are given a postmodern twist, enlivened by Shulevitz's stained-glass-bright watercolors and crazy-quilt graphics. Impressed with the cleverness of a simple man he meets in the desert, a king appoints him treasurer. The man quickly gains the monarch's favor--as well as the envy of the chief counselor, who plots to bring him down by accusing him of embezzlement. A search of the elderly man's home reveals a secret room, but instead of containing plunder as the wicked counselor has suggested, it's empty except for some sand and a small window--a place, the man tells the king, where he can retreat to remind himself that he's still the same simple fellow he always was. The story's message--that wealth and power don't have to corrupt, and that the measure of true wisdom is humility--carries echoes of many classic fairy tales, but the fresh delivery is Shulevitz's own. All ages.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Another provocative fable from a Caldecott medalist whose most recent book was Toddlecreek Post Office (1990). When a king meets a man who explains that his beard is black while the hair on his head is white because ``my head is older,'' the king decrees, ``You must not tell this to anyone until you have seen my face ninety-nine times.'' When the king's wily counselor tries to trick the man into breaking this edict, the man asks for only 99 copper coins in return--but they bear the king's likeness. Impressed with his cleverness, the king makes him treasurer; later, after again outwitting the jealous counselor by coming up with an honest and modest rebuttal to his false charges, he's appointed counselor in his place. Shulevitz's art--richly saturated colors, simple, angular forms, strongly energetic compositions, adroit caricatures--are a particular pleasure here, while the tale's classic structure and gentle wisdom especially recommend it for storytelling. (Picture book. 4-10) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.