Children’s Books

Feasts for Young Readers’ Eyes

By Nell Beram

Magic, monsters, pirates, a visual puzzle, circus antics — these engrossing new books offer children all the stimulation they crave without having to plug in. While these books aren’t heavyweights as far as their physical dimensions go, in terms of visual punch, they’re all knockouts.

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From “The Greatest Opposites Book on Earth.”

THE GREATEST OPPOSITES
BOOK ON EARTH

By Lee Singh. Illustrated by Tom Frost.

14 pp. Big Picture Press. $18.99.
(Ages 3 to 7)

This big-top-themed offering may not actually be the greatest opposites book on earth, but no one will be demanding a refund. Pulling up on a cardboard flap featuring a diminutive juggler (“Short”) extends a ladder, at the top of which she now appears sky-high (“Tall”). There’s also Singh’s most astonishing feat of paper engineering: With the flip of a die-cut page, a vertical stack of three mustachioed men (“Few”) joins 15 other acrobats to create a paper-doll-chain-like human scaffold (“Many”). This book offers, yes, fun for the whole family, thanks to Frost’s dazzling midcentury modern color scheme and the abundance of simple flaps that the littlest hands can manipulate with the greatest of ease. Please note: No circus animals were harmed in the making of this book. In fact, it’s an animal-free zone, unless you count a windup bird in a cage (“In”). Turn the page, and the bird is free to fly through the air (“Out”).

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From “An A to Z of Monsters and Magical Beings.”

AN A TO Z OF MONSTERS AND
MAGICAL BEINGS

By Aidan Onn. Illustrated by Rob Hodgson.

56 pp. Laurence King Publishing. $17.99.
(Ages 4 and up)

This is not your parents’ monster-themed alphabet book. True, it’s arguably old hat to tap “alien” for A and “zombie” for Z, but most young readers will be unfamiliar with E’s representatives, the Eloko, “dwarf-like beasties” who make their homes in hollow trees and “ring little bells to entrance unwary hunters.” As for the alphabet book author’s perennial problem of finding a tie-in for X, Onn comes through with Xing Tian, a Chinese giant who had it out with the Yellow Emperor — “a very powerful supernatural being” — and literally lost its head in the fight. The decapitated Xing Tian isn’t especially cuddlesome — in Hodgson’s rendering, the displaced facial features that now adorn its belly include fangs and a unibrow — but only the hardest heart wouldn’t have a soft spot for the book’s featured ghost, which resembles Robert Redford in his Jeremiah Johnson period (if Jeremiah Johnson had a humpback). Another hunk is the shaggy, mint-green troll, which looks as though it stumbled in from Muppets central casting, probably after eating a few.

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From “Pirates Magnified.”

PIRATES MAGNIFIED

By David Long. Illustrated by Harry Bloom.

45 pp. Wide Eyed Editions. $22.99.
(Ages 5 to 8)

Here’s one of the better books to feed your pirate-besotted child’s borderline worrisome single-mindedness. Long presents 16 pirate-themed spreads, each with expository paragraphs and a list of “10 things to spot” in Bloom’s chockablock central illustration. (Answers appear at book’s end.) Among the grislier challenges: In the “Life on Board” spread, readers are prompted to search for a tiny image of a man holding a saw and wearing a bloodied apron — he’s the ship’s carpenter, who would customarily take on surgical duties if there isn’t a doctor on the boat. Several spreads are devoted to pirates of legend (piracy: it’s not just for white guys) and their not infrequently weird ways (“Before a battle, Blackbeard would tie smoking fuses into his hair and beard to make himself look more frightening”). Back-of-book extras include a “Talk Like a Pirate” page and a portrait gallery of second-tier marauders. For many young readers, the die-cut magnifying glass that pops out of the book’s front cover will be an affectation, but for middle-agers-and-up tasked with helping them with the hunt, it’s worth a pirate’s plunder.

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From “Look! What Do You See?”

LOOK! WHAT DO YOU SEE?
An Art Puzzle Book of
American and Chinese Songs

By Xu Bing. Illustrated by Becca Stadtlander.

38 pp. Viking. $18.99.
(Ages 7 and up)

Your mission, from the introductory “Top Secret Assignment” page: Crack a code known as square word calligraphy — “invented in 1994 by Xu Bing, an internationally famous contemporary artist.” (You will recognize that name from the cover of this book.) You are told that knowing square word calligraphy is essential to figuring out the titles and lyrics to the 17 classic songs — some American, some Chinese — that are written out in what appear to be Chinese characters in the spreads that follow. You are about to say “But I don’t know how to read Chinese!” when you notice — wait a minute — that some of the ornate calligraphic shapes seem to harbor letters from the English alphabet.

This rather ingenious optical game is, mercifully, deconstructed and clearly explained in the “How to Write Your Own Square Word Calligraphy” page, which you’ll find facing the back-of-book answer key. But hold on. Before you resort to cheat sheets, consider perusing Stadtlander’s finespun illustrations for clues. Hint: Have you ever seen more majestic purple mountains?

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From “Harry Potter: A Journey Through a History of Magic.”

HARRY POTTER
A Journey Through a History of Magic

By the British Library

144 pp. Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic. $19.99.
(Ages 8 to 12)

The eyes of some Harry Potter fans might glaze over at the prospect of a science lesson. But explain that J. K. Rowling turned to astronomy to name Bellatrix Lestrange and Remus Lupin, and suddenly science doesn’t sound so nap-inducing. Provoking intellectual inquiry is the gambit of the British Library exhibition “Harry Potter: A History of Magic,” which opened in London in October (no need to book a flight: the show will come to New York next year) and inspired this lavishly illustrated companion volume. In addition to astronomy, chapters cover potions, herbology, charms and other Hogwarts curriculum staples. Scattered throughout the book are relevant reproductions of British Library artifacts, as well as quotes from the novels that will help readers connect the scholarly subject at hand with the Harry Potter book at heart.

It’s not the typical literary series that can support an exhibition like the British Library’s, but it’s also not the typical author who spends five years researching and plotting seven novels and leaves behind an elucidating paper trail. Among this volume’s less mystical museum pieces are pages from Harry Potter manuscript drafts and Rowling’s pre-book-contract sketches, including a Dursley family portrait Charles Addams might have found creepy.

Nell Beram is a former staff editor at The Atlantic, a frequent contributor to The Awl and co-author of “Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies.”

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A version of this article appears in print on , on Page 30 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Visual Feasts for Young Readers. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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