Skunk on a String

The highly anticipated wordless picture book from debut author and collage artist Thao Lam

In Skunk on a String, we meet a skunk who has been tied to the tail of a balloon. Try as he might, the persistent critter can’t get anyone to untie him. In this wordless story, he is shooed and swatted through a bustling parade, past the windowpanes of the city’s apartment buildings with their diverse, busy inhabitants, then up to the construction cranes high above the city. He floats through the zoo, into traffic, under water, and eventually lands atop a Ferris wheel. When he finally unties himself, the skunk misses the aerial life — so he comes up with an inspired way to fly again.

Paper collage art in whimsical colors and patterns — polka dots, gingham, and florals —creates a playful dynamic and brilliantly captures details of urban life, from the legs of a crowd to window boxes, spilled ice cream, and clothing flapping on clotheslines. This heartwarming, highly visual adventure takes a new vantage point on the ordinary and shows the skunk expanding his horizons, overcoming adversity, and, eventually, helping himself.

THAO LAM is the critically acclaimed author/illustrator of THAO, Wallpaper, My Cat Looks Like My Dad, Skunk on a String, and The Paper Boat, named a best book of 2020 by Kirkus, Booklist, School Library Journal, the Globe and Mail, CBC, and others . She studied illustration at Sheridan College and has an insatiable love of colored and textured papers, which she uses to create her exuberant collages. She draws inspiration from the stories she hears, from the beauty in everyday things, and from the work of the many illustrators she admires. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.

"Colorful collages present a pleasing balance of white space, interesting patterns, bright solids, and stylized shapes. (Well-read readers will find subtle references to Eric Carle.) [Thao Lam] orchestrates suspense and comedy...there are multiple reasons to return to the beginning, not the least of which is the impulse to figure out how to mimic such clever compositions." - Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW

 "The varied scenes and Skunk's comic expressions will keep the youngest readers entertained, offering gentle thrills and plenty of laughs as they observe his unusual predicament." - Booklist

"An interactive delight... Highly recommended." - Canadian Review of Materials