I don't know what it was about this book but I really enjoyed it. It doesn't look very appealing from the front cover to my eye but it is rather artistic and actually fits the book perfectly. This is one I would definitely recommend.

For me this book isn't one for children as they wouldn't really understand what is actually a complex one for them to follow. The book is different from the norm and it is challenging. I think age range wise you need to be looking at 8 years plus for them to understand it fully. As an adult I enjoyed it and its great to use the illustrations to show how one act can have huge consequences but I'm not really the target audience.

Unfortunately, I found this artistic book confusing. I wasn’t sure which paragraph to read first because of the layout, and as a result, I was lost.

This book is different, and challenging. It is not a picture book for little kids. I think a reasonable age range would be from 6 to 10 years old. Keeping this in mind, the book looks like a good option to move kids out of their reading comfort zone.

The story: The first part develops as a sequence of situation, only told backwards. For each event we get to know what the cause is, reaching at some point "the beginning", that it's never actually a beginning. And once there, the story is retold in the opposite direction, but distinct, because this time many acts of kindness are included, that make things different.

The illustrations: Also innovative, colorful, and original. They ask you to stop and look at them for a while. They perfectly match the story, and add to the dreamy atmosphere.

A story I had to read twice through to make sure I knew what I thought of it – and I possibly still failed at finding out that. It's such a bizarre chain of events and consequences, going backwards – which surely won't make it easy for the very young to read or understand – then forwards, showing how much hinges on the crux of one small matter. But it's such a bonkers, surreal chain the young won't fully engage with it. The artwork's really not appealing, either. Clever then, if not fully successful.

I received this book from Netgalley for an honest review.

When I think picture book, I think of something that a child will enjoy reading. This however is not something that I would share with a child. While the artwork is fascinating and I really enjoyed it, the story is really hard to follow. It's a story of cause and effect. When this happens, then this happens and then this happens. At one point there is talk of kidnapping, that doesn't really belong in a picture book for young children.

This book reminds me of the many songs we sang as children about things connecting like our bones. Every action, had a reaction which took the story in a different way. I read this to my grandson, or at least I tried to and he was not interested, he could not figure it out. Maybe he was just too young. I had fun reading it, but I was not impressed by it. The illustrations were just okay to me, I did not like the colours etc. It would work well when trying to teach about every action having a reaction with primary children.

Un giardiniere fa la guardia a una rosa, una rosa bianca.

Ma prende un raffreddore, a causa dei vestiti umidi.

Che sono umidi perché...

L'autore inizia così una girandola di eventi piccoli e grandi, che a cascata cambiano la storia e la vita di tutti i personaggi, in un vorticare di conseguenze e magnifiche illustrazioni.

Un gioiellino da leggere e ammirare.

At first this story was a little hard to follow. Some of the causes and effects seemed a bit off. But it became wonderfully recursive and I ended up enjoying this story. The interesting, non-traditional art is worth checking out, too.

I can not help but hear Meg Ryan in her You’ve Got Mail story voice reading these lines in my head. The only way to describe this book is as a “literary” picture book. The language is involved, and wordy. It is hard to keep track of the story because it moves from one scene to another without really connecting anything. I enjoyed reading the book but I can not say I enjoyed the story. Honestly I can not remember the story, because I could not follow the plot. The illustrations are excellent, but I see this more as a class project to be dissected in college than to be shared at bedtime with little children.

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