Reviews

The Garden of Abdul Gasazi by Chris Van Allsburg

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rjvrtiska's review against another edition

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4.0

A fun post-modern story with beautiful black and white illustrations of formal gardens.

stephanie_willis's review against another edition

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3.0

Winner of the Caldecott Honor Award in 1980, "The Garden of Abdul Gasazi" is magnificently illustrated. The book is laid out in a landscape style, helping each picture grasp all the details of the settings and characters. The book is designed in a way where the text and illustrations are separate. The text lies across from the illustration. Rather than having a full bleed spread, the text has a border around it, and each illustration has a white border around it. However, the interplay between the text and the illustrations are enhancing. If one of them were missing, the whole story would be lacking in quality. Each illustration is solely in grays, black, and white. Usually I am not a fan of colorless books; however, the details in each illustration is so vividly drawn, that I could hardly notice the lack of color. I was drawn into each picture, with all the creativity and detail it had to offer.

vickys15's review

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fast-paced

4.0

trixie_reads's review against another edition

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4.0

Some of the kindergarten kids "got" it, and some didn't.

libraryrobin's review against another edition

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3.0

Gorgeous illustrations (of course) and a story with a twist at the end, classic Van Allsburg.

ubalstecha's review against another edition

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Van Allsbur's illustrations are, once again, breathtaking. As with many of his books, the story is almost irrelivant as you spend most of your time thinking about the pictures.