The Sweetest of Lemons

During the long car trip from Isfahan across the desert to visit his grandfather’s farm, a young boy and his parents stop at the home of family friend Abbas. Abbas regales the boy with a tale about a family who owned a lemon grove. There was “one peculiar tree” that annually grew a single sweet lemon, “the sweetest of lemons, a lemon so perfectly sweet that it cured sadness,” but every year, the lemon is stolen. The three sons are determined to discover the thief, kicking off a fanciful story-within-a-story that involves a giant, a princess, magical sheep, and a mysterious underworld. The boy interrupts Abbas to comment, pulling the reader back and forth between the two narratives (à la The Princess Bride). Elements of the romance between the youngest son and the princess curiously mirror Abbas’s loving relationship with his wife. Bell deftly deploys different illustration styles for the tales to help readers orient themselves. The framing story is done in gouache, while the lemon-thief story uses collage as well as a traditional Persian illustration style. Endpapers show the boy’s grandfather, the boy, and a flock of sheep, pointing to another story, yet to be told. Nayeri and Bell experiment with narrative form, presenting visually rich interwoven tales that will surely captivate readers. Author and illustrator notes provide information about Iranian approaches to storytelling and art.