István Bányai (1949–2022)

It's books like these- the ones I read as a child- that really helped shape the person I am today. The Phantom Tollbooth also falls into this category, and whereas that one built a foundation for my love of knowledge, language, and reading, this one helped to form inside me a love of the unknown, as well as a mind that's always trying to see the bigger picture.

As for the book- well, everything you need to know is in the title. It's a series of images that zoom out more and more, revealing show more that nothing is at first what it seemed. A valuable lesson indeed, even (and perhaps especially) as kids raised on this book enter their adult years. show less

This is a book without any words. Each image has details between them that sets up chronological continuity to tell the story. Each image is followed by an image that is wider in frame to show that the world perceived in the previous image is in fact bigger. This happens on every turning of the page, and because of this, the story is able to expand to a diverse amount of settings that show all kinds of different places all around the world. I loved how strong the imagery was in this book. show more Each picture had strong visual details that stick out in the readers mind and provides context for the images that follow. This method of story telling is extremely creative and thought-provoking. This story makes me think about how big and vast the world is, but at the same time it reminds me that we are all connected in many surprising ways. This book was a remake of Banyai's other book called Zoom. Although I loved the ambition of the settings this book achieves, I enjoyed the first Zoom because it felt more grounded. This book makes a lot more sense if you've read the first Zoom beforehand. This would be a great book for a lesson that focuses on perspective. show less

Probably one of my favorite children's books i've ever read. The concept is simple. Through a series of images that are continuously followed by the same image but zoomed out, this book takes you through diverse settings all over the world. The constant shifting in scale and size made me really think about what it means to truly focus on a single image. We are constantly looking at frames of images on many sources daily, almost suggesting that a window to our world can be seen through show more whatever image we place in front of ourselves. On the other hand, this book suggests that no matter how small our world may look, we live in an open world that can never be contained. When the book is open, every page on the left side is completely black. At first I was confused as to why this was necessary. Then I realized that it helps to establish continuity between each proceeding image. Composition of the image and where our eye trace should be is a key factor in telling the story here, and it is done very well in this book. This is a wonderful example of complex storytelling through images alone. show less

The Other Side is a short, picture book-ish collection of drawings that show twists of perspective. On the most basic level, it’s a twist of camera perspective -- the same thing as seen from above vs below, front vs back, or inside vs outside (for example, a boy looking out the window from the world that is his messy bedroom vs the exterior of his apartment building, showing his window as just one of many).

On other levels, there are narrative twists, where the reader is surprised when what show more s/he assumes to be true is not, or where elements from early drawings show up in later ones. My favorite pair of drawings involves an urban setting where, among other twists, a mother and child descend from the sidewalk down into the Eastside/Uptown subway, having passed a poster about a reward for a missing monster … and then emerge from the stairs of the Westside/Downtown subway -- and there’s the monster, walking among everyone!

And then I sense other, more subtle levels, which I gnash my teeth that I’m missing!! :( Silly as it sounds (and difficult, since it’s out of print), this would be a good book to read for a group discussion. show less