A red ladder roams the countryside looking for companionship. It inad vertently raises the characters it meets up to heaven, and it is sad when they don’t come back down. During a storm, though, using a bolt of lightning that “looked exactly like a stair” (n.p.), all the people and animals that climbed the ladder along the way are able to return. Acrylic illustrations provide bold color, directive angles, and sweeping brushstrokes, and fold-out pages emphasize the reach of the ladder. Celebrated American poet Marilyn Nelson gives astounding treatment to this story in verse, maintaining rhyme and style in translation. 2007 USBBY Outstanding International Books List. bef Author’s poetry is a fundamental part of the children’s literary canon in Den mark. He passed away in 2002. Translator lives in the United States and is, herself, a Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award winner; illustrator lives

Originally published as Stigen in Dan ish by Det Schønbergske Forlag Denmark, in 1969. Translated by Marilyn Nelson.