Elizabeth Rusch is the author of more than two dozen award-winning
children's books, including A Day with No Crayons, The Music of
Life, Zee Grows a Tree, Volcano Rising, and Mario and the Hole in
the Sky, winner of the AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science
Books, the Green Earth Book Award, the Cook Prize, and the Golden
Kite Award.
Elizabeth Goss is an illustrator, author, and papercutter. Her
picture book My Way West- Real Kids Traveling the Oregon and
California Trails won the Paterson Prize for Books for Young
People. A proud member of the Guild of American Papercutters,
Elizabeth teaches art workshops across the Pacific Northwest and
loves welcoming students of all ages into the world of
papercutting.
@lizabethgoss
Rusch’s thought-provoking text begins: “Nothing is the space around
and between everything.” The presence of nothing, cued by plain
white areas in the cut-paper illustrations, appears first as
physical space: the gap where a tooth once sat, the expanse between
stars in the sky, the space for a missing puzzle piece. Important,
too, is nothing as temporal space: the moment before a leap of
faith or a bit of spare time in one’s day. Even in music, room for
nothing fosters beauty: “For what is a song without some silence?”
There can be, of course, too much or too little of nothing. On
these spreads in particular, Goss’s use of color and space makes a
strong emotional impact: a queasy-green child sandwiched between
tightly packed adults in a crowd finds “too little” of nothing,
while a blue-hued child sulks surrounded by “too much” of nothing
amid a stark white double-page spread. Wherever nothing is found,
there is space for something to unfurl. Goss’s intricate
illustrations visually articulate the importance of nothing, or
negative space, as discussed in the back matter. A striking call
for young children and aspiring artists alike, the story sets out
to prove that “nothing” matters, after all.
—The Horn Book
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