THE BORED BOOK

Two quarrelsome preteen sibs are exiled to a dusty attic full of books and find one (cleverly titled “The Bored Book”) that unfolds massively to cast the pair into quick encounters with a troll, pirates, a squad of knights in armor and a dragon. Having made their escape, the lad and lass discover that each scene came from a certain literary classic and so proceed to settle down happily to read one such (unidentified) together. Keith’s illustrations do little to turn Slater’s narrative into a fully realized literary adventure. The dimly penciled “real” world gives way to muddy color when the found volume unfolds like a giant map, both children are as crudely drawn as the generic places through which they tumble and the jumbled plotline dissolves into complete incoherence at the end. Michael Garland’s Miss Smith’s Incredible Storybook (2003) and Barbara Lehman’s Red Book (2004) are but two of several better uses of the book-as-gateway trope. (Picture book. 6-8)