books and cleverness

Mixed. The creative challenge for readers of the original is to imagine a story that is attentive to all the detail of illustrations and uses the caption to describe what is happening, and I think some of the stories fall short. For example, I think it's important that the illustration for "Captain Tory" features an adult gripping a child by the arm--it's frightening for children to be held that way. But the story is written such that the child is holding the captain's hand. It's a small difference, but I think it matters. More substantial differences are in Cory Doctorow's and Walter Dean Myers' stories, which are interesting but don't match the illustrations, and so it feels as though they are rather missing the point. For another kind of example, in Lowry's story the caption is integrated at a point in the story that is different from the point at which the tableau of the illustration is taking place. And DiCamillo's use of her caption felt like cheating. But I loved the story by Gregory Maguire, and the stories by Jon Sciezka, Stephen and Tabitha King, Sherman Alexie, M.T. Anderson, and--of course--Chris Van Allsburg, were all strange and wonderful.