Sansablatt Head is a blast, exploding all over the page in the shape of richly texturedcharacters, plot, and landscape.Imagine a King-Sansablatt-trapped in his own giant wooden head. Imagine his Queen-to-Be Claudine. She loves him so much she almost kills him (an axe to that head is just whathe needs to be free, she thinks). And don't forget Eugenia (who stops this disaster before itstarts), an outrageous Big Mama General who rules with an iron hand (and a smart one). Sheinsists that Claudine's short cut cannot dispel the spell that keeps the King from attaining histrue height and claiming his Kingdom, that only the long cut can-the intricate route throughdangerous woods (described with a T for terror) to the top of a mountain where inside a cave, but I'm treading on dangerous ground here myself because I don't want to give away anythingabout this marvelous journey and its surprising adventures. That's for me to remember withpleasure and for you to find pleasure in yourself. But I can tell you one thing: Imagine firstand last, longest and hardest about the main character-Alec-who doesn't have a friend onearth except Sansablatt, the Head: a lucky friendship for an unlucky boy because it carrieshim out of our world (where he's always been out-of-place) into a parallel one called Quellewhere, from the moment he and the Head flip down into it by way of a mud pit, he slowlydiscovers what it means and what it takes to become part of the right place at the right time.Wouldn't we all like to learn that lesson? Well, you will, and have a lot of fun on the way, when you accompany Alec all the way from the first to last page of Sansablatt Head, afantastic fantasy written by Joan Spilman.Llewellyn McKern
