The Joy of Wordless Picture Books: The Red Book by Barbara Lehman

Fun fact about me:  I have never changed my favorite color.

While other people shifted every few years from pink to green to purple and all the other colors in  between, mine has constantly remained red.

Perhaps that is what drew me to the wordless book: The Red Book.  

Honestly, I admit that at first I was a bit skeptical about the book.  Based on the title and knowing that it was a wordless book, I imagined that it would be one of those books that has shapes and objects that are different colors without any form of a story at all.

However, when I first saw the book, I thought surely I would like it (not to mention that it has won a Caldecott Honor award).

On the front cover, surrounded completely by a red background, a little girl is running toward the edge of the book.  Her direction and her stride lead the reader to open the book and discover why she is running.

The entire book is filled with pictures of this little girl and other such playful animated characters.  Since the only words throughout the entire book are the dedication and the title on the title page, one must look and decipher the photos in order to create a story.

And since there are no words, one can use their imagination to detail exactly how each character feels (I read this with my college roommate and we both enjoyed giving emotions and words to the characters that we saw).

For this reason, this book could be used for younger children who have not yet quite mastered reading yet.

These children can look at the pictures and understand the story and begin to realize the many stories that books can hold.

In fact that is the main point: discovering new worlds and new friends within the covers of a book; it encourages children to uncover new experiences with the help of a book and use of a healthy imagination (something that I personally believe should be fostered more in school than is often allowed).

Though young children can very much enjoy this book and understand the story, there is a deeper sense that I am sure older children would enjoy and ultimately discuss.

The story is that on the way to school, a little girl finds a red book and discovers an island in this book and a boy.  We then realize that the boy in the book found a red book about the little girl; so through their books they become friends.

But here is where the book takes on a concept that the movie Inception portrays.

For those of you who have not seen the movie, I highly recommend it because it makes you think.  My brother and I, after we watched it, had a forty-five minute discussion about the ending five seconds.

Anyway, I digress.

The main idea of the movie is going into people's dreams and then creating a situation where once in the dream you fall asleep to enter a new dream: a dream within a dream.

Well this book is clearly a book within a book as the two characters are in each other's books.

But wait, folks, there's more!  

The fact that the only words in the book are The Red Book on the title page leads the focus to the red book in the story.  But the book that we as the reader are holding is entirely red.

Is it possible that these children are reading the book that we are reading?  But they are in that book?

Like I said, it's a lot of fun to try to figure it out and talk it through with someone else. So though it is just a wordless book, I would say that all ages can enjoy this book and experience some of the adventures that one can have through the pages of a book just by looking at pictures. [Recommend for everyone]