The Other Side by Istvan Banyai (2005) is a title that presses readers to explore how its images are connected from beginning to end.  There are no words and no express plot – these are left for the imagination to dream up. 

From the very first page, the illustrations on each following page are somehow related to those on the previous page.  In many cases this is a point-of-view reversal, but in some cases the relation shatters an illusion.  What seemed to be a cat is a child in costume.  What seemed to be an upside-down painting is in fact a shadow cast by the world outside into the house which is upside-down.

Toward the end of the book, the pages seem to be unrelated, the thread broken up into chunks.  But look closer!  There’s something that connects each idea to the next.

Istvan Banyai is a gifted artist, creator of the children’s books Zoom and Re-Zoom, and well-known for editorial illustrations in publications such as The New Yorker.

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