Childhood is a bipolar time of life. Before adolescence, when things get forever muddled into grey, life's events are seen with such clarity that the cruelest, meanest moments occur parallel to those of unforgettable gentleness. Renée French understands the rhythms of being a kid. Whether or not it's actually about childhood, her work contains an almost blinding clarity and delicate balance of the sweet and the awful. Maybe, then, it's not a surprise that the woman who previously brought Grit Bath into the world has just made a children's book called The Soap Lady.

According to an interview with French on the Sequential Tart website, the inspiration for the book comes from an actual Soap Lady on display in the Mutter Museum at the College of Physicians in Philadelphia. The Soap Lady became such when her body turned adipocere after burial in the 1800s, a process that happens under certain burial conditions when body fat goes through a primitive rendering process and turns waxy and soaplike.

Creepy.

The Soap Lady is a creepily beautiful book. The drawings are done in a smooth, softly textured pencil style, which can only be seen in touches in French's previous work, although it's obvious that she's quite comfortable with this approach. The drawings have a luminous quality that only occurs when an artist really knows how to pull every possible shade out of a pencil. It is by far French's most ambitious work. 112 large-format drawings tell the story, with only the sparest text underneath -- a long way from even her most recent, novel-like projects (The Ninth Gland, Corny's Fetish).

Anxious to do an actual kid-test, I called up my friend Steve, who has twin daughters (actually born on different days), age 6. On a rainy Sunday afternoon, Amanda and Eraihna and I sat down on the couch with some sugary tea and a dish of almonds to read The Soap Lady.

With The Soap Lady, French carries on a fine tradition of creepy kids' books: Edward Gorey's grotesque rhymes and deathly looking children, Shel Silverstein's dark humor, Maurice Sendak's otherworldly monsters. Whether it's an alien (E.T.), a tree (The Giving Tree), or a stuffed animal (The Velveteen Rabbit), these classic tales accentuate the otherworldly nature of childhood and have lessons in them for kids and adults alike. In French's story, cleanliness is also a central metaphor, beginning when the Soap Lady -- gleaming white and eerily skeletal -- emerges from the waters of Snowflake Bay and befriends Rollo, who just can't seem to stay clean. Upon making the Soap Lady's acquaintance, Rollo discovers the joys of bathing, which can't be all that bad if it means sculpting soapy hair in the tub and blowing bubbles. Ultimately, grownups in these stories fail to fully appreciate their children's strange friendships, so it is no surprise when the Soap Lady is discovered and run back into the bay by a mob of dirty and evil looking townspeople, led (appropriately) by a couple of butchers. In the end, Rollo is left to enjoy bathtime on his own, with a macabre, yet sweet, French-like twist.

I thought it would go over great. And in a way, the girls got it. They knew who the bad guys were. They liked the little bunnies scattered through the illustrations. They thought it was sad when people called the Soap Lady a monster. But it felt awkward: Some of the words didn't sound right when they were read out loud, and others were just not part of a 6-year old's vocabulary. Some of the subtle humor was, well, just too subtle for the kids to get (I discovered Amanda and Eraihna have no idea what it means to have your mouth washed out with soap). The Soap Lady's creepy origins, which add so much depth to the story, aren't present. I ended up thinking that we would have had a better time if I'd read them some of French's more "adult" work.

Maybe the girls were just too young to appreciate The Soap Lady. But again, there was just something missing -- that magic that happens when people of all ages can be pulled into the same world with a book. I didn't recognize this at first, but -- as these stories teach us -- kids have a way of bringing clarity to what you see only with your head and making you see all of what is there.

It's possible, as a grownup, to appreciate the beauty of The Soap Lady, and to enjoy it intellectually. I love French's other work because it can make me queasy, yet I can't stop looking at it. Rather than exploiting the reader for shock value, which comes across as artificial, French's work is deeply and profoundly disturbing. As a reader, there's no stopping to appreciate her stories intellectually. French has complete control over the twisting in your guts; your head is just the vehicle for looking at the pictures.

The Soap Lady, on the other hand, feels forced and unnatural despite its beauty, like the jolt that happens when kids begin to grow up. It's surprising that French, who has spent so much time successfully translating the experience of childhood to adults, falters when it comes time to write for children. Adolescence is a painful, heartbreaking time. Very few do it gracefully -- most kids either grow up before they're ready, or get stuck watching everyone else grow up while they remain a kid. The worst thing about growing up is that it has to happen. The best thing about it is that the scars of adolescence eventually fade, and we get better at getting older as the years go by. Flaws and all, The Soap Lady marks the beginning of a mature, fully realized style for French. So appreciate it as a grown-up, and recognize its promise of better things to come. Maybe read it to some kids who come to visit one afternoon, but keep one clean on the bookshelf for yourself.