The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher

One of my absolute favorite childhood books. Imaginative story with wonderfully detailed illustrations that inspired me to go to art school.

The illustrations in this book are wonderfully imaginative, detailed, and evocative. I enjoy the fact that there are no words which I think makes the sharing of the book with my daughter a more creative and interactive experience for the two of us. In other words, we tell the story together from night to night, and we are always discovering new elements. I delight at her discoveries from the illustrations, e.g. the green thumb on the produce man, the penguin in the shop window, the silly, satisfied grin on the strawberry snatcher as he/she swings down from a tree on a vine. There are seemingly endless possibilities for discovering and creating stories here.The characters in the book reflect people of different races/cultures in the most subtle ways which I appreciate for my daughter because, in fact, it reflects the world we live in, and makes the book less mono-dimensional. I have wondered if my daughter might find the story frightening, as the strawberry snatcher follows the grey lady from town and through the woods attempting to "snatch" her strawberries. If you pay close attention to the facial expressions on the characters faces, you get everything. The grey lady is contented at first with her bag of strawberries and rubs her tummy in anticipation of eating them. Then the suspense builds as she becomes aware she's being followed. She evades the snatcher, then is found, then evades again, then is found again. My child sees it as a game of hide and seek. The end is a happy resolution for both.

A 4 year old friend of my daughter gave this book to her on her second birthday. As I "read" the book to my daughter the first time, I thought that it was too scary for a 2 year old and worried how I would explain what the strawberry snatcher was doing or what was happening in the eerie-looking swamp. To my suprise, she only said "turn pages again" when we finished, and asked me to "read" the book 4 more times in a row. She still likes it, and now I do too.

I have to admit when I saw this book I wasn't impressed but I "read" it to my preschoolers anyway. There are no words to the book just pictures. Well, My preschoolers LOVE it!! I have read it at storytime the past couple of years and it is the most requested book by every class!! They love telling the story themselves. For that reason I give this book 5 stars. After all the book was written for them.

This is perhaps the most unusual, beautiful, elegant, and enigmatic wordless children's book ever made. It it an allegory about life, death, persistence, wisdom, love and transformation, at least to my eyes. My children have loved it, been scared by it, and laughed with it. It is a book that joins the ordinary world and the archetypal.