The Red Book: A Caldecott Honor Award Winner

by Barbara Lehman

Overview

This Caldecott Honor–winning book about a book is a delightful, wordless tale about the power of stories, perfect for fans of Brendan Wenzel and David Weisner.

A red book is lying in the snow in the city. When you open it, you find a new kind of adventure. You will be taken across oceans and continents when you just flip the page. But this book-in-a-book holds even more secrets to discover.

Lehman’s simple story line and surprising illustrations create an unexpectedly enchanting story about friendship, connectedness, and how stories can bring us together . . . and even bring us inside their pages.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780618428588
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/27/2004
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	68,082
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.31(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Barbara Lehman has illustrated many books for children, including The Red Book, which was awarded the Caldecott Honor in 2005. Born in Chicago, Barbara attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she earned a BFA in communication design. A full-time illustrator, Barbara says, “Books and art have always held the strongest attraction for me. I have always felt drawn to ‘commercial art’ because of its ability to reach many people. I like the idea of being part of the media in a meaningful and thoughtful way, especially with children as the audience.” She lives in the Hudson Valley in upstate New York. Visit her website at barbaralehmanbooks.com.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Lehman's story captures the magical possibility that exists every time readers open a book.
School Library Journal, Starred

Simple, nicely drawn, and a friendly toast to the imagination.
Kirkus Reviews

The author's simply drawn art...is appropriate to a pleasing puzzle that will challenge young imaginations and intellects.
Horn Book

Editorial Reviews

Lehman's story captures the magical possibility that exists every time readers open a book.
School Library Journal, Starred

Simple, nicely drawn, and a friendly toast to the imagination.
Kirkus Reviews

The author's simply drawn art...is appropriate to a pleasing puzzle that will challenge young imaginations and intellects.
Horn Book —

From the Publisher

Lehman's (Moonfall) ink-and-wash panels show snow falling on a drab city. The square angles of the buildings counter the rounded doll-like features of a girl walking along the street; the delicate blues and reds of her clothes temper the grays of the city. The girl spies a red book sticking out of a snowbank. Once at school, she peeps into her treasure. The book's pictures show successively closer views of a tropical paradise. Green islands on a map loom, a single beach comes into focus, and a small black point grows to become a boy. As she watches, the boy finds a red book just like hers. But when he opens his, he sees a panorama of a city, a closer view of some windows and, at last, the girl in her classroom. Now the boy and girl can see each other; they stare in surprise, then smile. After school, the girl buys a bunch of balloons and sets sail for the boy's island. She drops the red book as she ascends; but it turns out she doesn't need the book to reach him. Next, a stranger on a bicycle picks up the girl's book and pedals away, glancing back with suspicion. It's the only moment that disturbs the book's otherwise perfect equilibrium, in which summer mirrors winter, two children join hands across a great distance, and the tropics provide a refuge from civilization. As visually uncluttered as it is conceptually rich, Lehman's red book is a little treasure of its own. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

K-Gr 6-This perfectly eloquent wordless book tells the complex story of a reader who gets lost, literally, in a little book that has the magic to move her to another place. On her winter-gray walk to school, a young girl spies a book's red cover sticking out of a snowdrift and picks it up. During class, she opens her treasure and finds a series of square illustrations showing a map, then an island, then a beach, and finally a boy. He finds a red book buried in the sand, picks it up, opens it, and sees a sequence of city scenes that eventually zoom in on the girl. As the youngsters view one another through the pages of their respective volumes, they are at first surprised and then break into smiles. After school, the girl buys bunches of helium balloons and floats off into the sky, accidentally dropping her book along the way. It lands on the street below and through its pages readers see the girl reach her destination and greet her new friend, and it isn't long before another child picks up that magical red book. Done in watercolor, gouache, and ink, the simple, streamlined pictures are rife with invitations to peek inside, to investigate further, and-like a hall of mirrors-reflect, refract, repeat, and reveal. Lehman's story captures the magical possibility that exists every time readers open a book-if they allow it: they can leave the "real world" behind and, like the heroine, be transported by the helium of their imaginations.-Kathy Krasniewicz, Perrot Library, Old Greenwich, CT Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

A charming wordless tale about a magical red book and two unnamed children. One child (quietly androgynous though called a girl by the flap copy) finds a red book lying in the city snow. She brings it to school and opens it to find a map of a warm island somewhere far away. Through a series of frames, the picture zooms in to show her a child on that island, also finding a red book (buried in the sand) and viewing the first child's snowy city. Now his pictures zoom in and he finds her looking at him in the book and then out through the classroom window. They can see each other! After school, a purchase of many balloons carries the city child off to the island to meet her new friend who sees that she's left the city and then, there she is-as seen in her book lying on the city sidewalk where she's dropped it. As it closes, a new city child, who will presumably have an adventure too, picks it up. Simple, nicely drawn, and a friendly toast to the imagination. (Picture book. 3-5)

Kirkus Reviews