Caldecott-winning illustrator Christian Robinson makes his authorial debut in this wordless tale made for twisting and turning in young readers’ hands. As a girl sleeps in her bedroom, a mysterious portal to another plane of existence appears in the darkness.
In his illustrations, Robinson plays with perspective in thrilling ways: The girl, a big smile on her face, hangs upside down out of the portal as she goes through it, using her bed sheets to lower herself down. Copious amounts of white space take the stage as she walks up and down gravity-defying stairs, ventures down a red hill filled with multicolored dots and crosses a rainbow-colored conveyor belt. Eventually, she sees that other children are there making mischief and playing with their other-dimensional twins. The girl takes this whole trip joyfully and, once home, goes back to sleep with a smile.
Robinson uses simple shapes—the oval of the portal, the triangle of the girl’s dress, the small squares of the stairs—to tell this multilayered, mind-blowing and truly out-of-this-world adventure. Was the girl dreaming? A small twist on the final page will leave readers wondering.
