PICTURE BOOK REVIEW : 102 by Matthew Cordell

102

written & illustrated by Matthew Cordell

Little, Brown and Company, 2026

ISBN: 978-0-316-58095-3

Source; eARC from publisher & purchased final copy

Ages 4-8

All opinions expressed are solely my own.

Book cover & summary provided by the publisher through Goodreads.com.

ABOUT THE BOOK

From Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell comes a cozy, magical nighttime adventure, in which a child discovers the mysterious, miniature world beyond his bedroom walls. Sent home from school earlier in the day with a fever, George awakens in the middle of the night to discover a cricket beckoning him on an adventure and soon finds himself shrunken down in size. He follows the insect guide through a crack in his bedroom wall, through the moonlit yard, and into the home of a family of mice at the base of an oak tree. There, in a tiny, cozy kitchen, George discovers the meaning of his quest: he must help the Mama mouse complete her special 102-bean soup for her sick young son. Delightfully sweet as it is fantastic, 102 seamlessly explores the values of curiosity, kindness, and generosity. The simple yet profound conclusion shares a clever wink with readers, encouraging them to believe the unbelievable.

REVIEW

The intriguing premise of 102 by Matthew Cordell centers on a young boy whose home from school with a fever. After his mother captures a mouse in the kitchen, young George places the mouse in an old terrarium for the night, intending to keep it. But during the night, George awakens to find a cricket on his bed. The cricket shrinks him down before leading him through a passage in the wall and outside to visit the home of the mouse's family who also has a sick child. Using the number 102 to connect the different parts of the story creates an unusual unifying element. Each section of the story begins with a full page illustration with some correlation to the number 102--a time, number of beans in a soup, a fever, or an address. The change in perspective creates some interesting questions about point-of-view and how much people miss by considering only their own perspective. Whether the journey is a dream or real comes down to the final page of the story. Cordell's hand-drawn illustratrations made with multi-colored pens presents readers with a story full of nostalgia which makes sense once one gets to the end of the story. The list of different types of beans on the endpapers also gets explained in the story, a fun detail for young readers to come back to after reading the story. A fun story with an unusual connecting subplot. Who knew a whole story could come to life from a single number. Recommended.