![]() ![]() So when he's faced with 15 blank valentine cards, each one waiting for a poem, he decides to hurt them in return. ![]() Gilbert remembers how hurt he felt when Lewis tweaked his nose and when Margaret made fun of his glasses. The annual classroom exchange of valentines is the backdrop for this engaging story about retaliation. One of Van Allsburg's best: an intriguing, well-told tale with elegantly structured art, resonant with significance and lightened with sly humor. In the b&w technique of his earliest books, Van Allsburg uses subtly graduated gray and cream to bring out the eerie, surreal quality of the story, his spare detail setting it in a credulous past-though the message about the destructive fear aroused by mavericks is universal. In a deliciously enigmatic ending, the broom proves to be alive and well-but whether by its own power or the widow's wits is left to surmise. Later, she reports seeing the broom's ghost. ![]() With other farmers, Spivey comes one night to get rid of the broom reluctantly, the widow tells them where it is and they literally burn it at the stake. Not so neighbor Spivey, a classic seeker after evil to rout out. When the witch departs, the broom stays with the widow, who at first is frightened when it not only sweeps but chops wood and feeds chickens but she comes to appreciate it. It's a witch's broom, but it's old and loses the power to fly, dumping its owner in the Widow Shaw's garden. ![]()
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