Ginny Goblin Is Not Allowed to Open This Box

Ginny Goblin is Not Allowed to Open this Box–at least not until after dinnertime. Why? What’s in the box? How can she not open the box? These are questions that drive David Goodner’s imaginary trials and travails of Ginny Goblin.

Goodner’s wry, fanciful hypotheticals illustrate the many ways in which Ginny is forbidden to open the mystery box in question. She cannot, for instance, “catapult little goats at the top of the shelf to knock the box down” nor “chop down the frightful forest,” which has been (hypothetically) placed between her and the box.

After many fantastical trials of discovery, Ginny seems to have given up, and now we (the reader) are in disbelief that she has ceased her quest because we too need to know what is in that box! Luckily, she’s just washing her hands for dinner, and our curiosity will soon be satisfied.

The artistic illustrations of Parisian Pixar animator and fine artist Louis Thomas appear to be pen and watercolor images of Ginny and the fantastic creatures of her (and/or the narrator’s) imagination.

My daughter delighted in Ginny’s misadventures, and I was impressed by the creativity and production value of this original mini-tale.