If there was a Quentin Tarantino in children’s literature, he would be Istvan Banyai. I am not sure whether he would perceive it as a compliment or something else entirely, but it was the first thought that entered my mind the moment I went through his “The Other Side.” I suppose it does not help that the cover of the book (yellow and black) reminded me of Tarantino’s Kill Bill. 
Istvan Banyai - click on the image to be taken to the websource.
The strange and the eccentric Quentin Tarantino
One can classify this as a nearly-wordless picture book – there are some pages that contain signs such as “The grass is greener on the other side” “LOOP” and a penguin talking to himself “Look out before you go to the other side” while crossing the road in a bicycle. Other than that, it’s a perfect match for our Bimonthly theme “When Words are Not Enough: A Wordless Picture Book Special” for March and April.
Our Wordless Picture Book Special for March and April 2011
Ramblings of a Children’s Lit Enthusiast. Before I proceed to arrange my thoughts and write them thematically, allow me to just ramble a bit about this book. First time I flipped the pages – not really looking carefully at the images, I got lost. I knew though that I had something exceedingly rare in my hands – one that puts the genre of children’s literature in an entirely different niche/dimension altogether. Banyai is a book artist.
Second time I really stared more intently at each of the images and connected them to the next page and went several pages back and went forward again just to establish the connection and the thread that links the images together. You would also need to turn the book over, sideways, flip forward and back. To say that the book is complex is doing it a disservice.
Beyond Perspective Taking. I have not read Banyai’s Zoom and Rezoom (the latter I believe Mary is planning on writing about, the former I have yet to reserve from our community lib). Reviews of the book though reveal that it has something to do with panning in and out, a play on perspective.
Click on the image to be taken to the websource: Blooey's Bookmarked "sumthinblu" website - a fellow book lover of postmodern picture books
The Other Side twists this concept a little bit further to a different dimension altogether – it shows you that if you change sides or if you moved just a little, the way that you see things would differ radically – who you are may not even be who you are (wait, did that make sense?).
It allows you to get a surreal and extraordinary peek at what actually goes on if you flip the page over, angle it a little to the right, or turn the entire book upside down – what is out there on the other side. While it has its angular/technical elements – I was moved by the tacit emotions conveyed in terms of empathy, thinking one’s thoughts as you perceive it from another dimension and the disturbing sense of the moon looking down at you as you are out there on the roof looking at the moon, your dog beside you. It is a mind-bender. Perhaps it is this sterile quality in its distancing itself from affective dimensions that makes it even more emotionally compelling as much as it is thought-provoking for me.
What is Out there on the Other Side? The book begins with a detailed set of visual instructions 1 through 6 on how to create a paper airplane – and you see the same paper airplane gliding past the window of this little girl playing her violin.
Opening pages of The Other Side
This image is important since it would provide you an anchor (sort of like a seatbelt in an F1 brand-new car) as Istvan Banyai takes you on a mind-twisting journey through his maze-filled mind that has virtually no boundaries yet filled with jagged edges colored in mono with your occasional splashes of orange and red (as could be seen above).
What adds to the complexity of the visual narrative is that some of the pages have no clear connection to each other – and you are left wondering if there was some minor detail that you may have missed out on. Hence, you really end up dissecting and analyzing (and possibly in my case overanalyzing) every minute detail that you see, just checking and rechecking how the pages may be connected in one way or another. In this blogpost by Children’s Book List, I like how this particular component of the book has been described:
Each pair of pages, front and back, presents inside and outside views, and although the scenes are not obviously linked to a larger plotline, they are connected through reoccurring images, colors, and themes. This is a challenging book, one that allows for creative speculation. The graphite-rendered artwork is quirky as well as infinitely interesting. Not everyone will get the sly humor, or be prepared to indulge in a book that demands such work. However, those who give it a try will be drawn into a thought-provoking, whimsical world.
A woman in an airplane reading a magazine of a lady standing by the beach
The same lady on the beach looking at presumably the same airplane with the lady holding the holiday postcard. Loop da loop.
While for Children’sBookList, it was quite obvious that some of the pages are in no way connected to each other, it was not as evident to me – so I needed to really dissect it and I even enlisted my husband’s help to check whether my understanding was matched by his intuitive and much-detailed view when it comes to graphics and illustrations. That is how complex this book is. Definitely not for the faint-hearted.
Puzzling Mind Games and the World Turned UPsideDOWN. The visual journey becomes even more mindboggling as we are drawn to images such as these:
Now what do you make of this strangeness?
I rarely cite from other book reviews but for The Other Side I felt that I needed to. This review by David Small of the New York Times last November 13, 2005 further described this book in this fashion:
While this makes for rougher traveling than the “Zoom” books do, and some of the transitions are hard to decipher, it is still a great brain massage. It may feel as if we are making a halting, lurching sort of progress until it becomes clear that this is the way to read “The Other Side”: stopping and flipping pages back to see exactly how we got to where we are. Glancing backward, we know even more about the present. Readers looking for an intrinsic moral message won’t find one here, but they will discover something just as valuable: a visual lesson in the value of knowing history.
Istvan Banyai is a Hungarian-born American illustrator, animator, and ‘provocateur.’ In this bio written by Chronicle Books he is described to have made his mark “with his striking and innovative editorial illustrations appearing in such publications as Atlantic Monthly, Time, The New Yorker, and Rolling Stone.” Zoom, his first children’s book earned him an International Reading Association (IRA) Children’s Choices Award from the children’s votes themselves. If you wish to know more about his work, click here to be taken to his official website.
PictureBook Challenge Update: 37 of 72
The Other Side by Istvan Banyai. Published by Chronicle Books LLC San Francisco, 2005. Book borrowed from the community library.
Oh wow, this is a cool book. It’s like a higher level version of a “search and find game,” you not only have to look for an object but also establish it’s connection to the next page. This book would appeal not only to kids but even to young adults (and adults) as well. The picture you posted of front cover is teasing me. I want to reach over and flip it, I bet it’s connected to the back cover. =)
Very astute! Yup. The front is connected to the back indeed. Shows the boy walking on “the other side.” I have a feeling this would appeal to a much older audience – and yup, its ‘coolness’ puts children’s lit in a different dimension altogether.
[...] The Otherside by Istvan Banyai [...]
[...] the first time Gathering Books is featuring the work of Istvan Banyai. Myra reviewed his The Other Side book a few weeks [...]
[...] The Other Side by Istvan Banyai [...]
[...] The Other Side (2005) Click on the image to be taken to my review of the book. [...]