Journey

A boy takes a train trip and imagines a host of surreal scenarios beyond the window--or is the train trip a metaphor for the artist's journey through life, an interpretation suggested by the substitution, in a final spread, of an old man for the young boy? Billout, perhaps best known for his illustrations in the Atlantic , devises sophisticated visual puzzles in the tradition of David Macaulay's Black and White ; unfortunately, Billout's are more perplexing than provocative. On each spread, the left page presents a partial view through the train window plus a hermetic caption, e.g., ``December, or maybe it was August,'' while the facing page affords the full ``view.'' Thus the boy sees a viaduct; the facing page shows a tyrannosaurus and a triceratops bounding across it. Similarly fantastical panoramas unfold throughout. Although the cryptic captions and the abrupt switch of main characters imply some intellectual agenda, the images seem merely strung together, a collection of curiosities. The audience for this title is hard to discern. Ages 10-up. (Nov.)