Red Again

The Red Book, Lehman’s Caldecott Honor–winning wordless picture book, imagined a red volume that connected two children across a great distance. On the final page of that story, a child on a bicycle finds the red book. Lehman’s sequel starts at that moment. The boy races home with his treasure and opens it to a page with a map of islands; an image of a girl in a dinghy comes into view, as through a telescope. She has a red book, too; two consecutive images show them holding their books up delightedly with the image of the other child displayed in a kind of hall-of-mirrors moment. The girl sets out to meet the boy, and both drop their books on the way in their haste. One copy is picked up by the girl who starred in the first story. Is it an endless loop? Who will find the books next? Lehman gives readers the satisfaction of learning more about the original story while leaving them with more to ponder. Together, the two volumes form a pleasing and perplexing Möbius strip of a story. Ages 4–7. (Nov.)