With it comes in swaths of colors, brightening the pages as well as the mood of the story and its protagonist. The illustrations remain in monochrome, capturing a bit of sadness and loneliness until the arrival of the blue paper airplane. This appealing picture book draws in readers right from the endpapers, which are like peeking into a perfectly detailed black-and-white diorama.

One day, upon cracking a window to let in fresh air, a paper airplane lands in her living room, opening the door to Elise's whole world. A touching, understated story about the transformative power of friendship.'-Kirkus Reviews, 'Panophobic Elise never goes out, night or day, and she likes her house to be perfectly tidy. Emil brings light and color into Elise's world, with the palette changing from grays to brilliant hues. The intriguing illustrations are photographs of a 3-D diorama of the home's interior with flat, cartoon-style cutouts of the two characters, whose skin tones are the white of the artist's paper. Emil is a friendly child interested in Elise's full bookshelves, and before long she is reading stories to him, playing hide-and-seek, and fixing him a snack, before sending him home with a hopeful 'Bye for now, Emil.' That night Elise works at making her own paper airplane, with a wordless final page showing a smiling Elise with her eyes closed, a completed sky-blue airplane on the table in front of her. One day a paper airplane floats in through an open window, followed the next day by a little boy looking for his plane. She is afraid of everything and never leaves her home. Elise is a middle-aged woman wearing a checked dress and apron, with her hair worn in tightly coiled buns on the sides of her head. Damm emphasizes how much people need others to care about, and readers will enjoy going back over the pages to see how the colors change.'-Publishers Weekly, 'In this German import (by way of New Zealand), a lonely, fearful woman named Elise lives alone in her tiny, gray house until a sky-blue paper airplane and a boy named Emil bring changes to her life. Elise's house fills with color-warm yellow, fuchsia, and red-and we see her smile. Sure enough, the boy and Elise begin a most unexpected friendship.

'And can I visit your bathroom? It's urgent!' As the boy heads upstairs, he leaves a trail of color behind him, and readers sense that things are going to change.

Apron-wearing Elise likes to clean her home, but she doesn't like to leave it: 'Elise was scared of everything./ So she never went out./ Night or day.' A blue paper airplane sails in through the window of the dimly lit, grayscale house, and the following morning, there's a knock at the door. 'To make the book's spreads, German artist Damm (Waiting for Goliath) draws the tale's characters, then places their cutout figures in a small, tidy abode with furnishings crafted of paper and board, and photographs them inside.

The Visitor by Antje Damm