WHAT A MASTERPIECE!

Readers follow a child through wordless scenes that suggest famous paintings and occasionally incorporate sculptural and architectural wonders.

The child sleeps in an off-kilter van Gogh bedroom, into which a starry night seeps—literally—through the window. Awakening to a Dalí timepiece, the child shuffles down the hall to a Duchamp “fountain” (clearly depicted as a urinal). Descending the Escher staircase, the kid greets a Modigliani mom, whose outstretched hand containing an apple obscures the face of a Magritte dad. So it goes until the protagonist arrives at and makes a contribution to a towering sculpture composed of bits and pieces of the art previously viewed. According to the jacket flap, this was originally published in Italy for a festival celebrating European art, both past and future. The inspirations, identified in a concluding spread, are by white, mostly male artists, primarily from the 19th and 20th centuries. The protagonist likewise presents white and male. Guasco creates graphic unity by imposing an overarching futurist or cubist aesthetic on his colorful compositions, employing stylized figures and geometric forms. Does this succeed as a children’s book? Wordless books offer valuable opportunities for inventing narrative, and this one is no exception. Artistically inclined adults and older children will enjoy the challenge of finding all the embedded references; others will simply be perplexed.

Short on plot and strong on design, the book relies on the eye of the beholder for its success.