Kaleidoscope
by Brian Selznick
Scholastic Press, 2021. 192 pages.
Review written January 13, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review
This is something new for Brian Selznick, but like the rest it contains his detailed and beautiful artwork done in pencil. This is a series of very short stories, and each one has a picture at the front. But before that picture, we see the picture viewed through a kaleidoscope.
And the stories themselves are kaleidoscopic. They all involve the first-person narrator and his friend, a boy named James. But they couldn’t all happen in the same universe. There are many fantasy elements in the stories with trips to the moon and magic apples and meaningful dreams and giants and dragons. I think of them as stories of the same people happening in parallel magical universes.
At the back, he tells that he was working on a book on and off for five years:
… but when I finally was ready to think about the story again, I found myself ripping apart everything I’d already written. It was like the narrative was shattering along with everything else, and out of the shards a new book began to take shape. As I worked, certain themes and images kept reappearing: gardens and butterflies, apples, angels, fires, trees, friendship, islands, keys, shipwrecks, grief, and love. That’s why I decided to call this new version of the book Kaleidoscope, because each of these elements, like bits of colored glass, turn and transform and rearrange themselves into something new. And like looking into a kaleidoscope, the view is always changing and only you can see it.
This book is very reminiscent of works by Chris Van Allsburg and Shaun Tan with a lot of surreal elements and haunting pictures.
I’m not sure the book completely worked for me, but I very much suspect that’s because my logical mind likes to understand a bit better how everything fits together. And I do find many of the stories sticking in my head after I shut the book. I highly recommend giving this book a try and seeing if it works for you.
thebrianselznick.com
scholastic.com
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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.
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