Review: The Book with No Pictures

The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



My favorite thing about writing this review was putting the book on my 'picturebooks' shelf. It has to go there, because it does everything (but one) to send the signals it is a picturebook. While absence of pictures is the point of the book, Novak used standard size, cover, endsheets, and other picturebook format to craft the contradiction (counterpoint)!

As postmodern fiction, the book is gimmicky. But it is clearly directed at the read-aloud as the toy being played with, so this specific gimmick is something we haven't already seen a lot of. For example, similar postmodern objectifying of the book was there in Lane Smith's [b:It's a Book|7747422|It's a Book|Lane Smith|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1316737426s/7747422.jpg|10577192], but Smith's work plays on different features of the picturebook experience. Novak makes narrator and audience into literal, explicit characters instead of leaving them tacit or projecting them onto an illustrated character in the book--I get to imagine this fictional read-aloud person in the book as 'me'.

Because it demands an audience that is well-saturated with experience in read-alouds, I can't see myself doing this read-aloud until I am sure the kids do have that deep experience with picturebooks and read-alouds. A well-versed crowd of picturebook aficionados should be ready for the laughs!

Finally, and most enjoyable--this is a book about prosody! The small sans-serif reader parts felt like I should read them in Jim Gaffigan's 'aside' voice from his stand-up comedy. Direct use of graphic design elements such as font, size, color, ellipses, page placement (including use of negative space), are a little bit over the top. I tend to prefer it when readers are guided to a choice instead of 'told' how to read the words. But many of these graphic design moves help Novak stage the obviously different characters with a kind of 'stage directions' tone that helps readers maintain the different voices needed for the book to work well. So despite my preferences, it was a pleasing approach to prosody.

I'd love to see Novak do something more with these simple manipulations of narrative structure and the social machinery of the picturebook read-aloud!



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