Magical Changes

I will start this by saying that Graham Oakley is my favourite author/illustrator. Sadly most of his bibliography is now out of print and it took me years to hunt down all of his books. This is the only one that has no text. It is a sort of art book. I actually went through a phase in my pre-teens of getting this sort of book out of the library, so I would have probably appreciated it then. As an adult, it doesn't do that much for me. The things that I have always loved about Oakley are a) his wit and b) the intricate detail in his illustrations. You don't get much of either in this book. But I am sure others will appreciate it much more than I do.

All of the pages are split in half horizontally. On all the right pages are images that show more include four white cylinders and on all the left pages are images that include six beige poles. The idea is that you can turn the top or bottom half of the pages, thus mixing up the images and creating new weird ones. The best way to read it is front-to-back-to-front over and over until you have exhausted all the options. From a practical point of view, it is safer to keep the book open in a V shape rather than flat or the strain will start to rip the pages away from the spine (remember you are most likely reading a fairly old edition). The biggest flaw is also practical - the further the two halves of the page are from each other in the book, the less well they match up as you have a thick pile of paper distorting the lay slightly.

If you like looking at weird pictures that may stir your own imagination, then this book is perfect for you. It doesn't have its own plot though and overall I was not that interested by quite a few of the pictures. I think the two that did really work well for me were the one of a man lying in bed, staring in fear above him, where pretty much all the panels worked really well to suggest his madness, or the one of lines of soldiers saluting... many odd things - creating all sorts of weird dystopias.

I feel mean giving any Oakley book less than four stars, and I do appreciate the artistry that went into this one, it just doesn't do all that much for me, personally. show less

Graham Oakley's Magical Changes is a wordless, split-page book which allows you to make many bizarre picture combinations (even the original pictures are quite surreal), but every picture still works. The French ed. is called 512 after the number of possible combinations. Magical Changes received a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Special Citation and an American Library Association Notable Book Citation in 1980. It's lovely!