osprey_archer | Caldecott Monday: Tuesday

When I was in fifth grade, my teacher had us write stories about David Weisner's Tuesday - a picture book peculiarly conducive to having stories written about it, as it's almost entirely without words. I don't recall what I wrote (later that year I wrote a story about a tiny Borrower-type person who got lost on my teacher's famously messy desk), although clearly there is quite a bit that one could write about a phalanx of frogs who ride their flying carpet lily pads for a night flight over a sleeping New England town.

Seriously, though, that's it. That's the story. The frogs go flying and have a jolly time chasing crows, drifting through open windows to watch TV with an old lady (who has conveniently fallen asleep), and stealing dish towels off a clothes line so that the towels can billow behind them like capes as they fly. Superfrog!

It also does an interesting thing visually, where many of the pages have inset panels that elaborate on the story that the main illustration is telling. I've seen this in comics before, but not a picture book, and I wonder if this isn't the reason that the book won the Caldecott - using this technique from another medium to level up picture books' visual storytelling game.