SLOW STORM builds much like its namesake, starting out calmly
and escalating to a frenzied climax. Caught inside the whirlwind of
the storm are a female firefighter named Ursa Crain and an illegal
Mexican immigrant named Rafael José Herrera Sifuentes, or
Rafi. Their interaction after a barn fire brings them together and
causes both to reevaluate their own particular life paths in a
sharp, often challenging story from writer and illustrator Danica
Novgorodoff.

Novgorodoff has a wonderful ear for the dialogue of her Oldham
County, Kentucky, setting. She manages to convey broad sweeps of
emotion with an admirable economy of words. What’s more, she
tells her story without editorial narration. Instead, SLOW STORM is
unveiled through its characters’ points of view. This method
of telling the story is often confusing, but that’s not
necessarily a bad thing. It creates an atmosphere of uncertainty,
and with Novgorodoff’s fantastic watercolor illustrations,
the story is often elevated to an almost dreamlike quality.

That dreamlike nature is reflected in the two protagonists. Ursa
is miserable in her life. Taunted by the men around her, including
her own brother, she’s looking for something else. Rafi is
looking for escape and a new beginning. What they find together is
a brief chance to see the world in a new way. Novgorodoff wisely
keeps her tale minimalist here; she’s not one to become
heavy-handed, which is refreshing.

Complementing her effortless storytelling are
Novgorodoff’s lush watercolor paintings. Quite simply,
they’re beautifully rendered. With the book’s action
taking place just after the Kentucky Derby, her intriguing
parallels between galloping horses and the constant running of Rafi
as he searches for a place to stay is nicely done. Novgorodoff is a
former horse trainer, and her background shows (her love for
animals also shines through in the wonderfully emotive facial
expressions she gives each of them).

SLOW STORM has the feel of an atmospheric short film. Even the
cover is breathtaking. As Ursa stands before a soot-filled sky, a
hint of yellow sun peeking through the clouds, she is surrounded by
a mixture of flying birds and falling leaves --- or perhaps
they’re ashes blowing around from a nearby fire. That alone
should be enough to signal the power Novgorodoff is capable of
conveying in her images.

In fact, SLOW STORM works so well because of Novgorodoff’s
ability to almost constantly convey motion and movement. She
captures on the page even simple things like winds blowing, or
people and animals running, or cars and trucks driving (the
early-on picture of a tree’s leaves depicted in the
windshield and hood of a car is a nice touch), all with a flair
that belies her relative inexperience. Moreover, her choice of
angles in her panels --- she rarely focuses directly on Ursa in the
first half of the book, instead portraying her either from above or
below --- shows a unique eye. It will be exciting to watch
Novgorodoff as she develops further.