(++++) INTRICATE AND INDULGENT

Mahler: Symphonies Nos.1-9. Czech Philharmonic conducted by Semyon Bychkov. Pentatone. $74.99 (11 CDs). 

     Mahler cycles tend to be multi-year affairs: the vast performance requirements of his symphonies and the demands they make on conductors and orchestra members alike usually mean the works are recorded over a considerable period of time. Semyon Bychkov’s sequence on Pentatone is no exception: the performances date from 2018 to 2025. In one sense, though, they date back much, much further – to September 19, 1908, when Mahler himself led the Czech Philharmonic in the first-ever performance of his Symphony No. 7 (which was not very well received, a response that dogs that specific work to this day). 

     Even though, obviously, not a single member of the 1908 Czech Philharmonic is alive today, the orchestra retains a kind of collective connection to and understanding of Mahler’s music – a characteristic of institutional memory that preserves the special affinity of all first-rate ensembles for specific pieces of music and particular composers. Certainly the responsiveness of the orchestra to Bychkov, its chief conductor and music director since the start of the 2018-2019 season, proclaims the musicians’ understanding of Mahler and their comfort with his many often-mercurial moods and the compositional elements through which he expressed them. The sustained elegance of playing throughout this 11-CD set – again, even though the specific performers within and working with the orchestra differ to some extent – is one of the major reasons for its solidity and its success as a knowing and very thoughtful presentation of music that remains notoriously difficult both to perform and to comprehend fully. And that is despite some packaging that is not thoughtful, notably the omission of any sung texts – even though they were included when these performances were released individually. Pentatone’s decision to leave them out is unworthy of the excellence of what Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic bring to this undertaking. 

     A single word to encompass so vast a cycle is virtually impossible to articulate, but if one wishes to choose one here, that word would be “heartfelt.” However careful and well-balanced the playing, however eloquent the sectional balance, however emotive the expressiveness within individual movements and in the totality of each symphony, what stands out here is the emotional (not merely technical) attractiveness of the Mahler landscape: all the beauty of sound, care of sectional balance, and thoughtfulness of pacing are at the service of Mahler’s depth of feeling and the ways in which it changes – and does not change – from the first symphony to the ninth (the lack of a Mahler Tenth in this compilation is regrettable). 

     Inevitably, Bychkov’s cycle can be nitpicked – anyone’s can – but the sheer sweep with which Bychkov approaches the individual symphonies and the totality of the nine is such that small complaints here and there simply seem churlish. Giving great credit for small touches as well as the overall approach seems much more reasonable. Bychkov really lets the music breathe: his performances do not drag, but he allows them a level of expansiveness that results in multiple symphonies lasting well beyond the usual 80-minute length of a CD – Nos. 2, 3, 6, 8 and 9 are all 85-plus minutes long (curiously, while Nos. 3 and 8 are split onto two CDs, the others are not; and No. 8 would actually have fit on a single disc). 

     The willingness to let the music expand and breathe extends to and indeed is occasioned by Bychkov’s approach to the individual elements that create the collective effect. In No. 1, for example, the first movement opens quietly, a bit slowly, so the woodland scene emerges gradually, the main song theme sounding very sweet. Throughout, this is a broad reading, the wayfarer (Mahler used the word in the sense of “journeyman” rather than someone just gadding about idly) meandering through the fields rather than being in any particular hurry to get anywhere. Careful sectional balance is evident throughout the symphony, with lyrical elements brought to the fore while Bychkov handles the discursive elements of the finale by keeping its momentum strong and managing the balance among sections carefully. 

     No. 2 features soprano Christiane Karg, alto Elisabeth Kulman, the Prague Philharmonic Choir, and particularly felicitous handling of recorded sound: as noted, all 87 minutes are on a single disc, a feat thought impossible without diminution of aural quality until just a few years ago (and one rarely attempted even today: virtually all CDs still run 80 minutes or less). The tremendous strength of the tone-poem-like first movement creates a slight disappointment in the contrasting Andante moderato that follows, which is gentle, on the slow side, and, as a whole, very emotional and almost cloying – a bit too overstated for the material. But this is one of those nitpicks whose significance fades in light of the many excellences of Bychkov’s approach, including the lovely flow of the strings in this movement and throughout the symphony. One thing that Bychkov gets right, again and again, is silence, which is as crucial in Mahler as are the massive gouts of sound that he sometimes demands. The near-silence at the start of the fourth movement greatly adds to its effect, and in the finale, Bychkov does not hesitate to descend into complete silence – as when the music becomes still before the solo trumpet is first heard, thus conveying real anticipation of what is to come. Mahler’s use of massed vs. individual instruments – the amazing way he brings chamber-music effects to works using a large orchestra – is especially clearly conveyed here, and makes the work’s conclusion highly effective. 

     Bychkov’s cycle proceeds with deep understanding throughout. In Symphony No. 3, it includes mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison with the Prague Philharmonic Choir and the young voices of the aptly named “Pueri gaudentes.” It is the sheer vastness of Mahler’s Third, his longest symphony, that Bychkov explores thoroughly convincingly. He beautifully grasps the solo-vs.-ensemble elements of the score, its individualism paired with gigantism, its extended pauses (notably amid the sections of the first movement and at key points in the finale) contrasted with its headlong forward progress. The brass and percussion sections of the Czech Philharmonic are simply wonderful here, as also in Symphony No. 2 – abetted by a recording that picks out individual instruments to perfection while allowing full-orchestra massed sound to flower unimpeded. Symphony No. 4 is well-paced, well-played, and well-considered throughout, with a just-right fade into the ineffable at its conclusion. In the finale, soprano Chen Reiss’ singing does something crucial by sounding childlike, unforced and naïve – akin, verbally, to having the strings use less vibrato than is common in performances today. The effect is near-magical and is right in line with Mahler’s child’s vision of Heaven. In Symphony No. 5, especially at the end of the second movement, the exceptional clarity of the recorded sound is again noteworthy, and the movement’s ending, wherein the music simply disintegrates, is highly effective. The Adagietto is a touch too quick – surprising in this set of usually deliberately paced performances – and the finale comes across as a bit piecemeal, with Bychkov not quite knitting it together. Again, though, those are nitpicks, balanced by Bychkov’s close attention to the last movement’s slight lumbering quality and his understanding that it only seems straightforward. 

     The later symphonies all get equally thoughtful, elegant explorations with far more high points than lower ones (there are no truly “low” points at all in this cycle). No. 6 is vast and heartbroken and enormous both in scale and in emotion, the astonishing finale – which here runs 32 minutes, almost as long as the opening movement of Symphony No. 3 – exploring all the feelings and concerns and psychological depth that have come before, until eventually collapsing with a level of despair that makes it quite understandable for some people to have labeled this symphony as Mahler’s “Tragic.” No. 7, which musicologist Deryck Cooke (who did what is still the best and most idiomatic completion of the Tenth) notably described as a "mad, mad, mad, mad symphony,” makes plenty of sense here, being built around the two Nachtmusik movements and the central realm of shadows (Schattenhaft) to a finale with many parallels to that of No. 5: the apparent (but not actual) straightforwardness and the simple tempo designation (Allegro in No. 5, Allegro ordinario in No. 7) that belies the underlying complexity of the material. 

     Symphony No. 8 is as massive here – and as detailed – as any audience could wish. Here the vocal performers are sopranos Sarah Wegener, Kateřina Kněžiková, and Miriam Kutrowatz; mezzo-sopranos Stefanie Irányi and Jennifer Johnston; tenor David Butt Philip; baritone Adam Plachetka; bass David Steffens; and the Prague Philharmonic Choir, Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno, and Prague Philharmonic Children’s Choir. The gigantism of the forces is clear, and their unified and very strong merged and melded sound is impressive at all times. But here as everywhere in this cycle, Bychkov remains attuned to the contrasting delicacy of individual elements of the symphony, the care with which Mahler draws attention to individual voices and individual instruments, the chamber-like arrangement of certain sections whose orchestration is carefully designed to complement and contrast with the use of gigantic numbers of singers and instrumentalists elsewhere. Thus, the evanescence of the ascent to Heaven in Blicket auf becomes a balance of and equivalence to the material that succeeds it and ends the symphony, in which the totality of both Heaven and Earth seems to resound with grandeur, hope, and a kind of peace that truly passeth all understanding. 

     Where Mahler could and would go after this in his Ninth (and Tenth – not to mention Das Lied von der Erde) has always seemed difficult to fathom. Bychkov takes the overwhelming quiet (a phrase that fits Mahler’s Eighth as aptly as “overwhelming sound”) into new realms with Symphony No. 9, which he handles as a delicate balancing act between the joy-and-sorrow of earthly existence, on the one hand, and the resignation-and-peace of eventual Abschied, on the other. The symphony is dynamic and dramatic, balanced between utter despair and a frantic attempt (in the Rondo-Burleske) to force gaiety into a world wholly lacking in it. Eventually, Bychkov guides these incompatible elements just where Mahler wanted to take them: to understanding, acceptance, wistfulness, regret, and a level of unsurpassed calm that contrasts vividly with the glories proclaimed at the conclusions of the Symphonies Nos. 2 and 8. It is a stunning capstone for the entire Mahler cycle by Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic, and an affirmation, if one is needed, of the depth of understanding that this orchestra (through continuity) and this conductor (through intuition, study and deep understanding) bring to some of the most complex and deeply meaningful symphonic music ever written.

(++++) LIGHTS! CAMERA! SAXES!

A Cinematic Suite. Quintessence Saxophone Quintet (Uli Lettermann, soprano saxophone; Jonas Buschsieweke, alto saxophone; Roland Danyi and Thorsten Floth, tenor saxophones; Anatole Gomersall, baritone saxophone). Paschen Records. $20.99. 

     The importance of music to the moviegoing experience tends to be underestimated. Film is a visual medium, to be sure, but the extent to which music underlines, expands, comments upon and enhances what is seen on screen can be highly significant. And some great or near-great composers have been well aware of this: Shostakovich, Prokofiev, even Saint-Saëns (in 1908!). Classically trained composers have had significant impact on the film world even if their concert-hall works have largely fallen into obscurity: Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alfred Newman, Miklós Rózsa, Dimitri Tiomkin. And a few names crop up consistently with regard to “great film music,” whether or not the music itself can be described as “great” (an arguable adjective in any case): John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Henry Mancini, Elmer Bernstein, Max Steiner. 

     Because movies are mostly a popular medium rather than an esoteric one, much successful film music is rather forgettable, serving its esthetic purpose without calling on filmgoers’ emotions or intellects in more than a superficial way. However, because of its comparative harmonic simplicity and accessibility, movie music can be an interesting jumping-off point for creation of more-elaborate material designed to reach out well beyond the purposes for which the music was originally intended. And that brings us to A Cinematic Suite, a very clever and essentially through-composed compilation of film music arranged into a 10-movement, 51-minute sequence for saxophone quintet that can be heard simply as music or listened to as its own quasi-cinematic creation by following the “screenplay” that is nicely outlined in the accompanying booklet. 

     The whole project is unusual, even strange, but very intriguing to hear – the playing is excellent throughout – and genuinely involving purely as music. It helps, of course, if listeners know the underlying material that has been arranged, transcribed, expanded and otherwise modified by two members of the Quintessence Saxophone Quintet, Uli Lettermann (responsible for six of the tracks) and Anatole Gomersall (the remaining four). It is a fair assumption that most potential audiences for this Paschen Records release will know most of the foundational material – but certain that not everyone will know all of it. The track sequence, with titles sometimes taken directly from the films that serve as sources and sometimes modified from them, starts with Toccata & Fugue & Funk in D minor (Bach/Lettermann); continues with Star Peace (John Williams/Lettermann); and then moves to Godfather (Nino Rota/Lettermann); Game of Thrones (Ramin Djawadi/Gomersall); and Gabriel’s Oboe (Ennio Morricone/Lettermann). The Morricone work, from the 1986 Robert de Niro vehicle The Mission, is one piece that may not be as well-known to listeners as the other music here. Nor will the track that follows necessarily be generally familiar: Tank! It is a Yoko Kano/Gomersall movement using the theme of the 2001 film Cowboy Bebop, an anime movie based on a 26-episode series with which listeners may or may not be acquainted. 

     The Quintessence Saxophone Quintet next moves to Maria (Leonard Bernstein/Gomersall); Indiana Jones (John Williams/Lettermann); Mission: Impossible (Lalo Schifrin/Lettermann); and then, for a two-minute finale and wrapup of the entire suite, A Cinematic March assembled and arranged by Gomersall from material by Alfred Newman, Henry Mancini, and Williams. 

     Much of A Cinematic Suite is exhilarating, and some of it is surprisingly moving: the variety of sounds that these five saxophonists produce is impressive, and the superficial but still evocative warmth and lyricism offered here and there come through to very fine effect. It is difficult to categorize just what this suite is, musically speaking: it is not quite film music, although film music pervades it; it is not quite classical music, although venerable classical techniques are used throughout, and the saxophonists’ classical bona fides come through consistently; it is not quite popular music, although the works on which it is built are drawn from a medium explicitly intended for popular consumption rather than concert-hall enjoyment. Listeners only moderately familiar with saxophones will likely be surprised at the instruments’ range both of notes and of communicative capability, and the CD can certainly be heard as a thoroughgoing exploration of saxophonic virtuosity. But what is interesting is that A Cinematic Suite, created for saxophone quintet, manages to transcend both the cinema and the writing/arrangement for these specific instruments. It is well and intelligently conceived, skillfully put together and performed, and offers considerable enjoyment throughout. It may be hard to explain just what this suite is, but it is not difficult at all to perceive that listening to it is a pleasurable experience – and a rather unusual one – that not only incorporates a considerable amount of music for movies but also transcends the music’s original reason for being.

(++++) CHILDREN (AND ADULTS) OF THE NIGHT

Mr. Chow’s Night Market. By Emily Sun Li. Illustrated by Yu Ting Cheng. Penguin Workshop. $19.99. 

     It is difficult to convey just how clever the many clevernesses are in Mr. Chow’s Night Market. You have to see them to believe them – which is the point, or part of it. Emily Sun Li beautifully designs a story that rests on the notion of “day people” vs. “night people” and only at the end turns out to rest as well on a fascinating real-world element of life in Taiwan. Yu Ting Cheng delightfully illustrates the narrative in a way that not only brings the basic story to life but also enhances it by expanding characters and character traits to which the author never refers but that, once seen, appear absolutely integral to the book and indicate that the whole thing would be a significantly lesser experience without them. The result is a truly outstanding collaboration and a tale that carries surprises far from its underlying, fairly mundane day-vs.-night underpinning – right to a final page revealing that even the characters’ names are carefully created to become an expanded element of enjoyment. 

     It all starts with Mr. Chow – whose name, it is revealed at the back of the book, derives from the Mandarin Chinese word for “supermarket.” He runs a store called “Trader Chow’s,” an amusing play on “Trader Joe’s” in addition to an apt designation in and of itself. Being a night owl, Mr. Chow has to drag himself to work every morning, and the first part of the book shows him struggling to manage the expected and necessary elements of shopkeeping, getting into tiredness-related trouble and largely ignoring his grandchildren, who really want to help him. The middle section of the book has Mr. Chow talking with his neighbors (all of whose names also derive from suitable Mandarin Chinese words) about his difficulty getting going in the morning and his troubles keeping the supermarket running smoothly. The selection of neighbors is one of the many carefully crafted and clever elements of Mr. Chow’s Night Market: they are a baker who works super-early, a nurse whose services may be needed anytime during the day or night, and a movie-theater usher whose job requires availability whenever showings of films occur. 

     Clearly Mr. Chow can learn a lesson from these variously time-sensitive people and jobs; and he does, beginning a frenzy of nighttime activity – when he is at his best – that transforms his supermarket into one that will open after dark. And now his grandchildren, always eager to help, are welcome to do so – and they do, cementing the neighborhood-and-family focus of the entire book. 

     Changes complete – including the setup of food stalls outside the main supermarket building – Mr. Chow and his grandchildren wait to see what will happen when people discover the “night market.” They do not have to wait long: a trickle of curiosity turns into a river and, soon enough, “an ocean of children and families,” as the supermarket and its surrounding area become a gathering place for the entire community – not only a place to buy things but also a nighttime communal experience to be enjoyed by everyone. 

     One of the many delights of the book is the author’s end note explaining the foundation of the story: a real “first night market in Taiwan” that dates to 1899, still operates today, and is now just one of many such establishments. But that is not all: real Taiwanese night markets do not feature adorably sleepy pomelos, dozing turnips, happy and bright-eyed crabs, or the other characters scattered about Mr. Chow’s Night Market and lending every page, every bit of verbiage, an element of delight and gentle fantasy. Indeed, the only two-page spread in the book with no words is one of its highlights: early on, Mr. Chow’s tiredness and attempts to get everything done himself while struggling to stay alert result in a tremendously chaotic and very funny mess that is exceptionally amusing in part because the fresh produce, the prepared snacks, the shopping carts, the food containers, even the overhead lightbulb are drawn with big eyes and expressive faces that clearly reflect the alarm they all feel as Mr. Chow’s unfortunate experience reverberates throughout the store. The detail of the illustrations, which were done with pencil and paper as well as software, is simply delightful: even the anthropomorphically personified sun and moon, unsurprising background characters in books such as this one, have wonderfully rendered, individualized personas that contribute to the overall atmosphere. Mr. Chow’s Night Market succeeds on all levels: story, illustrations, real-world tie-ins, and enough detail both in narrative and in pictures so that children will discover new forms of enjoyment on every reading of the book, including the many re-readings it will deservedly receive.

(++++) MAJORLY MINOR

Carl Czerny: Piano Music, Volume One—L’Écho des Alpes Suisses, Livre 2 No. 1; Impromptu brillant sur un thème national Suisse; Impromptu sentimental sur le thème ‘O nume benefico’ de l’opera La Gazza ladra, de Rossini; Hommage aux Dames—No. 2; Fantaisie sur des Mélodies de Beethoven. Jingshu Zhao, piano. Toccata Classics. $20.99. 

Carl Czerny: Piano Music, Volume Two—Grandes Variations brillantes et concertantes pour deux Pianofortes sur un Thème favori de l’Opéra Montecchi e Capuleti; Rondo Brillant for piano duet, Op. 321; Duo Brillant et Concertant pour Deux Pianos, Op. 358; Fantaisie et Variations à Quatre Mains sur l’Opéra de Bellini “I Puritani.” Jingshu Zhao and Haoyue Liang, piano. Toccata Classics. $20.99. 

     Among mostly forgotten composers, Carl Czerny (1791-1857) remains ironically well-remembered – not for his very extensive production of music of all sorts for salons and concert halls but for his specifically pedagogical creations, which piano students still use to this day. Ironically, those learning exercises have led to dismissal of any claim that Czerny might otherwise have had to being a composer of some stature, reducing him to a skilled but limited teacher creating mostly forgettable music designed to help budding pianists flower more fully. 

     Liszt and Beethoven knew better. Liszt was one of Czerny’s students, as Czerny himself was taught by Beethoven. And when Liszt produced the remarkable tour de force called Hexameron, consisting of variations on the march from Bellini’s I Puritani by six great pianists including Liszt himself, Czerny was one of the other five chosen (the remaining ones being Thalberg, Pixis, Herz, and Chopin). 

     On the face of it, it is hard to believe that a composer with more than a thousand works to his credit – 861 with opus numbers plus many unpublished, and with many of the numbered works containing multiple unrelated pieces that could easily have opus numbers of their own – could have produced little beyond repetitive and trivial, if well-meaning, practice material. But that is the underlying assumption about Czerny, to such an extent that Jingshu Zhao’s two Toccata Classics volumes of Czerny’s works for solo and dual pianos and piano four hands contain nine items of which not a single one has ever been recorded before. Among composers ripe for rediscovery, Czerny is riper than most. 

     This is not to say, on the basis of these very-well-played CDs, that Czerny comes across as an unaccountably neglected pianistic giant such as Alkan, who was in that unenviable position until he was “rediscovered” in the last few decades. The Czerny pieces on these discs can reasonably be thought of as, by and large, salon pleasantries – performative selections from the composer’s near-inexhaustible supply. The first two solo works in Volume One, both based on themes from or associated with Switzerland, show this clearly. The first is labeled Introduction & Variations brillantes sur l’air Suisse Alles liebt/Tout aime, the word brillant being one that occurs again and again in Czerny’s virtuoso piano music – and is a key to both his intent and his style in these pieces. Within this specific work, which includes an introduction, statement of the theme, five variations, and a finale, the word brillante appears in two tempo markings for elements of the piece in addition to being used in the overall title. There is no attempt at profundity anywhere: two sections labeled Andante sostenuto have that marking for tempo contrast, not anything approaching seriousness, while the Molto agitato variation is bouncy, not agitated in any negative sense or, indeed, in any emotional way at all. The second Swiss-focused item offered here features brief forays into more-distant keys, with pleasant tempo and dynamic contrasts throughout – everything in its place and everything designed for listeners’ pleasure. Arpeggios and other note cascades abound, and delicacy contrasts with drama in the context of a sure command of the entire keyboard. 

     The Czerny impromptu on an aria from La Gazza ladra is sentimental for sure, as its title indicates, and sustains a pleasantly rocking motion almost throughout. The excerpt from Hommage aux Dames is labeled Élegantine ou Rondeau brillant and is not so much elegant as it is a display piece that is indeed filled with pianistic brilliance – which flows nicely into gentler passages. The conclusion is “tossed off” virtuosically to a particularly high degree. And then, last on this disc, Zhao offers one Czerny work with pretensions to somewhat more-serious consideration – although quite without pretentiousness. The Beethoven fantasy opens with more seriousness than the other works on the CD, retaining a darker coloration and some drama almost throughout. It is filled with extended slower passages – unusual for these works – and the decorations and virtuoso material arise from the more-majestic thematic elements instead of sounding tacked-on or created purely for display purposes. In this fantasy, Czerny uses the piano’s lower register to a greater extent than in the other pieces Zhao plays – most of the time, he favors the sounds of higher notes for their lighter weight and aspirations to delicacy. Although not exactly a tribute to his onetime teacher, this Beethoven-focused Czerny work is evidence both of the warm regard that the mature Czerny retained for his tutor and of Czerny’s ability to wear a somewhat more-substantial stylistic cloak than usual on suitable occasions. 

     For the second volume of these world première recordings, Zhao is joined by Haoyue Liang for some interesting demonstrations of the similarities and differences between music for piano four hands, on the one hand (so to speak), and for two pianos. Czerny wrote a considerable amount in both forms, with the two-piano music tending to be grander in scale and more oriented toward public performance, while the four-hands-on-one-keyboard works are inclined to less drama and a smaller scale. Thus, Czerny’s variations on a theme from Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi (the names of the opera’s title are reversed in the title of the piano piece) runs a substantial 25 minutes, and the Op. 358 Duo Brillant (that word again!) lasts even longer, nearly half an hour. The two piano-four-hands pieces on the disc run only about seven minutes and a bit less than 15, respectively. 

     What is intriguing about all four of these offerings is the skill with which Czerny spreads pianistic duties between the two performers and the care with which he designates tempo and emotional indications. The word calando (“calming down,” meaning reducing both tempo and volume) appears frequently; unsurprisingly, so do words including brillante (or brillant), dolce, vivacità, leggiermente, delicatezza, espressivo, and so forth. Czerny had clear (and clearly communicated) ideas about the way these pieces should sound, but he also left plenty of interpretative room for the two performers to showcase their respective virtuosic abilities. Zhao and Liang do just that, operating as an efficient performing duo while trading off or mutually engaging in the works’ virtuosic complementarity and their moments of emotional communicativeness (surface-level but effectively transmitted). These performers are not as tight-knit as the best duo pianists can be – there is no sense that each is almost intuitively tuned into the other’s thinking or that both can meld their respective parts effortlessly. Instead, there is something a bit studied in these performances, a sense more of knowing the music than of feeling it. To be sure, though, there is no great depth of feeling to be had in these works, and there is nothing wrong with letting Czerny’s propensity for teaching pianism in his other works carry across, to some extent, to these more-substantial pieces. Hopefully there will be more volumes of Czerny’s concert and salon pieces to come, from these pianists and others – because these discs show clearly that there is a treasure trove of Czerny piano music just waiting to be rediscovered and used for its primary purpose, which is a mix of pleasurable listening and challenging performance requirements. And if the gems mined from Czerny’s oeuvre turn out to be only semi-precious, as is the case for all the pieces on these discs, it is worth remembering that semi-precious stones have beauties all their own, and tend to be more readily accessible than more-rarefied jewels.

(++++) PAGING AMUSEMENTS

Bookie & Cookie Turn the Page. By Blanca Gómez. Rocky Pond Books. $18.99. 

     Optimist/pessimist. Glass half full/glass half empty. Upbeat/downbeat. Positive/negative. There are all sorts of ways to formulate the eternal back-and-forth between “always look on the bright side of life” and “but what about the dark side?” But few of those formulations are as amusingly nonjudgmental – and educational – as the ones Blanca Gómez creates in her stories about Bookie and Cookie. 

     Bookie & Cookie Turn the Page is the second of these, and like the original Bookie & Cookie, it builds on the clever premise that the characters are aware that they are in a book – and behave accordingly. This time, the two huge-circle-headed best friends start out on a completely blank page of the book, and are fully aware of how dull their environment is. Time to turn the page! That is the premise – one that starts ever-optimistic Bookie anticipating all the neat things that could show up on the next page, while always-pessimistic Cookie considers all the difficulties that might lurk just one page ahead. 

     What Gómez does extremely cleverly is to imagine how these cartoon characters might themselves draw the scenes that they imagine as the book goes on. Bookie anticipates turning the page to find “a bright sunny day,” and lo and behold, there is a two-page spread as Bookie might draw it, with a smiling sun (wearing Bookie-style eyeglasses), birds flying and happily singing, colorful flowers all about, and Bookie playing badminton with Cookie. The difference between Bookie drawn by Gómez and Bookie “drawn by Bookie” is especially clever and amusing. 

     And then readers turn the page to see what Cookie is imagining and “drawing,” in the form of “an awful stormy day,” with rain pouring so hard that a wall poster indicates that the planned “Cookie Picnic at the Park” has had to be canceled. Dark clouds, lightning, scowling faces, inside-out umbrellas, leaves blowing everywhere – oh, what a mess if Bookie and Cookie turn the page and Cookie turns out to be right! 

     The whole book proceeds along these lines. Bookie’s response to Cookie’s worries about a stormy day is to imagine meeting a new friend in the storm – one with a brightly colored umbrella that is big enough for all three kids. But, worries Cookie, what if she isn’t really a friend but turns out to be “someone naughty who wants to splash us?” Bookie refuses to take the bait – optimists will not be turned negative – and says maybe the newly discovered friend will know where all three kids can shelter from the storm in a bakery “and eat lots of cookies!” Cookie does not buy it – pessimists will not be turned positive – and says that even if the imagined new friend takes them to a cookie bakery, she may grab all the cookies for herself and refuse to share. 

     The “what if” scenarios continue page after page, and the blurring of Bookie’s and Cookie’s “reality” with their imagination continues as the imagined new friend becomes more and more real – that is, as real as Bookie and Cookie themselves are. Bookie & Cookie Turn the Page is unceasingly inventive at bringing kids into the Bookie-and-Cookie world while expanding that world’s dimensions, and the increasingly fantastical pages “drawn” by the title characters become more and more complex and amusing as the story goes on. An imagined circus parade “drawn” by Bookie, with all three friends marching in it (Bookie carrying a pennant that says “READ”), leads to a Cookie-imagined-and-drawn traffic jam that is upsetting to drivers including a giraffe, a hat-wearing fish, a peach, a penguin, a frowning emoji wearing a birthday-party hat, and more. Later there are imagined outdoor scenes packed with butterflies or mosquitoes, depending on which character is thinking them up. There is even a wonderful secret library that may, however, contain a book-gobbling monster. 

     The ultimate imagining here has Bookie thinking of a potential “page full of magic and wonder,” while Cookie worries about “a dull blank page full of nothing” – which, readers will recall even before Bookie reminds them, is where this whole story started. And that “reality” makes Cookie ready, at last, to turn the page – to a final scene packed with snippets of previously imagined locations and characters, all now drawn in the Gómez style rather than the imagined-by-the-characters one. This final two-page illustration, complete with the “library monster” happily reading a book to a circle of attentive kids and some of the “traffic-jam” drivers as the new-found friend brings Bookie and Cookie a piled-high platter of cookies, is an absolutely perfect ending for Bookie & Cookie Turn the Page – except that it is not the end. Not quite. Gómez reserves the very, very last page of the book for one showing the friends – three of them now – walking along, holding hands, and considering turning another page. That is an invitation to future adventures that will be enormously attractive not only to Bookie and Cookie and their new friend but also to every child (and probably every adult) lucky enough to have gone on this more-or-less imaginary journey through the bright and not-so-bright realms of the land of what-if.