"The Queen's Shadow" is described as Cybèle Young's "first foray into nonfiction" on the back jacket sleeve, and in some ways this is correct—Young is certainly attempting to convey early scientific principles surrounding the senses (specifically vision). Young leans hard on anatomy and animal biology in the end notes, and weaves these sciences into the narrative of the tale as well. But in many ways, "The Queen's Shadow" is not at all nonfictional, in that it involves a fictional queen, talking animals, and errant shadows. The front jacket sleeve calls the book a "surrealist whodunit," which is somewhat closer to the mark. The illustrations more or less define the archetype of the word "whimsical," and they really are eye-catching. And in other strengths, the text relies heavily on assonance and alliteration, which makes for a pleasant reading experience.

My only quibble is a significant one, however: there is simply far too much text per page for the average child to stick with it from start to finish. Some pages are great, including the first four or five, and lulled me into a sense of security that the midsection of the book ultimately took away. The reading level of this book, in terms of vocabulary, does mandate a Glossary and additional explanation here and there throughout; the first page alone includes terms like "lavish" and "nobility," both of which are advanced terms for a three to five year old. There's a disconnect between the book's intended audience and the book's reading level, I think, which is a tough thing to overcome. That said, this sort of picture book is devilishly hard to write, and Young makes a solid attempt that's worth a good look.

The pictures in this book are lovely. The children enjoyed looking and guessing who could have stolen the queen's shadow. It gave some good opportunities for writing as they wrote about who they thought had stolen it and why. The information about how animals see was great for developing scientific knowledge and some children were fascinated and learnt a lot from it.