This is one clever and thought-provoking book by Barbara Lehman. It is a book within a book within a book and it is rich with layers.
The Red Book starts by slowly focusing in on a young girl who stumbles across a red book. She picks it up and continues on her journey to school.
Distracted by the book during class, she opens it. Each page of her book slowly focuses in on a young boy on an island who stumbles across another red book. However, in his book, he sees a young girl sitting in a classroom reading a red book.
The young girl looks out of the window and at you, the reader, who is also reading a red book.
She buys some helium balloons to take her to the boy on the island. The boy watches each part of this adventure in his copy of the red book.
On the way to the island, the young girl drops the book which falls to the footpath. As it is falling to the footpath we see the reunion of the boy and girl on the pages of the book before it closes.
The last page of The Red Book shows us another boy who picks up the book and rides away with it. Oh, the possibilities!
This is truly a spectacular book about imagination, possibilities, and the thoughts our mind can conjure up. Readers will be left wondering whether any of this happened, and whether or not the young girl left the classroom.
You might be interested in other Wordless Picture Books.
Book details:
The Red Book
Buy online from The Book Depository or The Nile
Barbara Lehman
ISBN:978-0618428588
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 2004
