Matt Phelan's Bartleby is a quietly subversive picture book whose literary cleverness may sail past its young readers but will delight adults who recognize its affectionate nod to Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener." Phelan recasts Melville's famously resistant clerk as a polar bear in a red bowler hate who prefers distance to belonging and contemplation to compliance. "Everyone says NO sometimes," the book opens. "Bartleby says, 'I PREFER NOT TO.' He says it a lot."
At school, Bartleby sits apart from the crowd, opting out of circle time, music time, and free play. Wordless spreads bathe the classroom in cool blue washes that depict the children enjoying the activity while Bartleby, bright in red, gazes elsewhere, visually marking him as both present and apart. He is not disruptive or unkind; he simply chooses differently. When Ms. Melville asks the class to draw self-portraits, Bartleby requests another task. The accommodating teacher agrees, and Bartleby produces not a portrait but a frame: a series of bowler-hatted squares labeled "OUR CLASS." Ms. Melville declares that it "completes the portrait!" The gesture reframes difference as contribution. Instead of joining the group by becoming like them, Bartleby defines the space that allows them to be seen. Only after this moment of recognition does he decide to play alongside his classmates: "I would like to."
Phelan's spare text and restrained palette honor children who move at an oblique angle to the crowd, those who watch before acting and listen before speaking. Bartleby offers a gentle tribute to students who live just outside the circle, reminding readers that belonging can take more than one shape. --Julie Danielson