Literary Road Trip and Review: The Lonely Shadow

A small shadow is lonely because he doesn’t know who he belongs to.  He begins to search for his mate so that he’ll be happy.  He stops by a door and a chair and even an old grandfather.  He keeps walking and looking for his mate and eats with a deer, drinks with a duck and sneaks with a snake.  Finally, a wise old owl tells him he should look at the playground where all the children are.  He finally discovers his mate and they have fun playing together. At the end of the book, they say:

I have you,

you have me.

Together

we will always be.

The Lonely Shadow by Clay Rice is a sweet book about friendship, for children ages 4 to 8.  The illustrations and the cover of  this book are remarkable because they are all silhouettes cut out by the author.  The silhouettes are cut from black paper and placed on a background.

Clay is from the lowcountry of South Carolina and has fond memories of growing up in the area.  He learned the art of cutting silhouettes from his grandfather.   I had the pleasure of meeting Clay at SIBA and he even cut a silhouette of me and it only took about a minute.  I asked him how often he has to sharpen his scissors and he said he doesn’t – he just buys about 30 pairs at a time.  Here’s a video about Clay and The Lonely Shadow: