I AM BOOK

A story finds its audience.

Book, the main character, was “cooler than cool” back when it was at Rufus Elementary, but for some reason it’s been moved to New School Elementary, where it hasn’t enjoyed nearly the same level of popularity. Pimply teenagers pull it off the shelf and rip out pages, other kids drop it on the floor or use it to conceal comic books, and, during a classroom read-aloud, one child yells, “The art is bad in this book!” This triggers an identity crisis, with Book trying to change itself into a horror story, a fantasy book, or a dictionary, like its other literary friends. But those helpful stories remind Book that “each person’s perfect book is…different from each other,” and at the end Book goes home with an excited reader. What could have been an important message about individuality and the right to read is muddied by a meandering plot, extremely busy illustrations, and inconsistent rhyme. Some books about books play with the creative limits of a metatext, but this one gets lost in its own goofiness, trying to stay on top of contemporary slang (“That’s so cringe!”) rather than delving into anything deeper.

An exuberant attempt at exploring metafiction that fumbles.