#71 of 1001 · October 10, 2020

And now for something I’ve never featured in a post before: a wordless picture book. If you’ve never read one, you might not be aware of this unique format in which an illustrator tells a story through pictures alone, rather like the literary equivalent of a silent film. This is Free Fall, created by the sensational David Wiesner, and it’s a true feast for the imagination. We follow a young boy as he drifts off to sleep and finds himself traversing an extraordinary dream world. The characters, the objects, and the terrain itself seem fundamentally unstable and impermanent: chess pieces transform into royal courtiers, a jagged wall morphs into a menacing dragon, a skyline of buildings collapses to reveal the fluttering pages of an atlas. Wiesner’s glorious paintings draw the eye so smoothly from one unforgettable vista to the next that you may reach the end and find yourself diving right back in at the beginning. #davidwiesner #freefall #dream #map #chess #castle #dragon #wordless #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbooks #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks