Reviews

Gr 1-3-- Valentine was a physician and a Christian priest who often prayed on his patients' behalf. One day the emperor's jailer brought his blind daughter to Valentine asking for a cure. Although the treatments didn't give the child sight, a strong friendship was born and flourished until the Roman soldiers destroyed the physician's home and imprisoned him. Before his execution, he sent the child a note with a crocus enclosed, and she, `` . . . for the first time watched its color dazzle like the rays of the afternoon sun.'' Sabuda ends with information about the beliefs surrounding the saint and the holiday. The fluid, straightforward retelling of the legend is accompanied by evocative, mosaiclike illustrations created from colored cut paper. Varying sizes of illustrations, careful page placement, and effective use of white space create the impression of the large-scale period mosiacs. A fine melding of text and art. --Maria B. Salvadore, District of Columbia Pub . Lib .

Stunning mosaics crafted from marbleized and hand-painted paper depict this legend of Valentine, a humble Roman physician and ``priest of the Christians'' whose patients include a jailer's blind daughter. Recognizing the danger of praying to a single god (rather than to the numerous gods most Romans worship), Valentine prays for his patients only at night, but he is eventually imprisoned. Aware of his fate, he writes to the jailer's daughter, who receives her sight when a crocus drops into her hand from the scroll her father reads is ``from your Valentine.'' The book's matter-of-fact narrative (some explanations are simplified for the intended audience) rightly points the reader's attention to Sabuda's intricately conceived mosaics. The marbleized paper creates subtle textures and shading, while vertical illustrations exude drama and compassion. Sabuda extends his mosaic motif onto the white space by constantly expanding and fragmenting it with full-page illustrations; tall, rectangular frames; patterned border strips and blocks of type. The resulting interplay of geometric shapes and color lends an especially appropriate classical appearance to this singular work. Ages 6-9. (Oct.)