Palazzo Inverso

by D.B. Johnson

This very imaginative picture book draws its inspiration from the work of M.C. Escher. In a whismical, dreamlike story it features a young boy Mauk who is apprentice to a master builder. Mauk is supposed to only sharpen the master's pencils, but it seems he has turned the drawing around when no one was looking. As he runs through the corridors, courtyard and staircase of the palazzo in construction, things turn one way and then another, the ceiling becomes a floor, the staircases run the wrong way, all is confusion. The workers try to catch him, the mistress leans out windows the wrong way, the Master calls out, but in the end they see that all is right, even turned every whichway. The Master (and Mauk) realize the building is more beautiful in its confusing ambiguity. You read the book left to right, then turn it over and read it back the other way, with the pictures telling both sides of the story (beginning and end). It's quite intriguing. My favorite spread is the one where the boy runs over the bridge- on one end of the story birds and fishes are in their place, at the other end the birds are in the water and fish swim in the sky. Delightful!

Rating: 3/5     32 pages, 2010