Here are 100 books that Zoom fans have personally recommended if you like
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I love wordless books immoderately, and I also love books that have meta, surreal, or magical realism elements. This list combines these two features! I was personally so happy that The Red Book was described in a review as “a wordless mind trip for tots,” and I think all the books on this list would perfectly fit that description (and much, much more!) too.
I will remain forever astonished at the epic feat of world-building in The Arrival. It thoroughly pulls me into an immersive experience where I am learning along with the main character how to navigate the new world into which he has immigrated. As he learns, we learn. I find myself so emotionally involved with his success in his hopeful new reality. The art is amazingly detailed and conveys the complex and richly visual world, yet also sets a strong emotional tone that brings us into the action.
What drives so many to leave everything behind and journey alone to a mysterious country, a place without family or friends, where everything is nameless and the future is unknown. This silent graphic novel is the story of every migrant, every refugee, every displaced person, and a tribute to all those who have made the journey.
THE ARRIVAL has become one of the most critically acclaimed books of recent years, a wordless masterpiece that describes a world beyond any familiar time or place.
Sited as No 35 in The Times 100 Best Books of all time. It has sold over…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I love wordless books immoderately, and I also love books that have meta, surreal, or magical realism elements. This list combines these two features! I was personally so happy that The Red Book was described in a review as “a wordless mind trip for tots,” and I think all the books on this list would perfectly fit that description (and much, much more!) too.
Impeccable artwork, precision storytelling, and singularly unique invention are all packed into this amazing book experience. The basic concept is brilliant and mind-bending, and actually maybe even a little bit mind-melting. On top of that is an additional treat of wonderful and whimsical glimpses into a magical undersea world, obviously painted with true passion for the subject matter.
A bright, science-minded boy goes to the beach equipped to collect and examine flotsam--anything floating that has been washed ashore. Bottles, lost toys, small objects of every description are among his usual finds. But there's no way he could have prepared for one particular discovery: a barnacle-encrusted underwater camera, with its own secrets to share . . . and to keep. In each of his amazing picture books, David Wiesner has revealed the magical possibilities of some ordinary thing or happening--a frog on a lily pad, a trip to the Empire State Building, a well-known nursery tale. This time, a…
Philosophical novels challenge rather than appease. They subvert. They obscure. As a former acquisitions editor at major publishing houses, I am confounded by the scarcity of chances taken on books that don’t fit the status quo or, are "difficult." I am most interested in how books—even when they meander and cavort—lead to surprising and unsettling revelations. Or how they don’t lead to revelations at all but keep the reader guessing as to when some semblance of grace will be achieved. I don’t wish to sound pessimistic; if anything, I wish to be realistic. Philosophical novels are reflections of life, which is often confusing, contradictory, and, yes, difficult. With a touch of grace for good measure.
This one needs no plot description. If you don’t know what The Wizard of Oz is about, then I don’t know what to tell you. Watch the movie, or better yet, read the book. It’s considered a children’s classic, but like the best kid-lit, there is so much sinisterism and cynicism hiding behind the curtain (no pun intended).
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'"Come along, Toto," she said. "We will go to the Emerald City and ask the Great Oz how to get back to Kansas again."'
Swept away from her home in Kansas by a tornado, Dorothy and her dog Toto find themselves stranded in the fantastical Land of Oz. As instructed by the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins, Dorothy sets off on the yellow brick road to try and find her way to the Emerald City and the Wizard of Oz, who can help her get home.…
Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away.
When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…
Growing up, I loved drawing and painting and disliked writing papers, so always thought of myself solely as an illustrator. Then one day, the tale of a pie-baking worm looking for new digs (Ned’s New Home) popped into my head and I shifted into author-illustrator. Later, the story of some highly innovative forest critters (One Snowy Morning) took form and I flipped fully into the role of author (with illustrator Dana Wulfekotte’s vision filling the pages). Of course, children’s story narratives can carry big ideas. For me, the opportunities surrounding the books themselves have taught me that the ability to see things differently is a very valuable tool.
The grass is not always greener on the other side, especially with these two friends. One wants to travel the world (deserts! mountains! tundra!), while the other wants to stay at home (swimming! baking! ice skating!). Rather than be envious of each other, they share their adventures via postcards and the recipient’s own experience is further deepened. Inspired by this exchange, for many years a friend and I would alternate being “Toot” or “Puddle,” sending postcards to each other about our adventures near and far.
Toot and Puddle are the best of friends. But when Toot leaves Woodcock Pocket to travel and see the world, Puddle chooses to stay at home. Just when Puddle begins to miss his old friend, he embarks on some of his own adventures-right at home. Finally, after Toot returns from his year-long trip, the two discover that true friendship knows no boundaries.
With a delightful mix of humor, warmth, and a classic style all her own, Holly Hobbie captures the all excitement and joy that surround adventures-near and far-and reminds readers that true friendship knows no boundaries.
Growing up, I loved drawing and painting and disliked writing papers, so always thought of myself solely as an illustrator. Then one day, the tale of a pie-baking worm looking for new digs (Ned’s New Home) popped into my head and I shifted into author-illustrator. Later, the story of some highly innovative forest critters (One Snowy Morning) took form and I flipped fully into the role of author (with illustrator Dana Wulfekotte’s vision filling the pages). Of course, children’s story narratives can carry big ideas. For me, the opportunities surrounding the books themselves have taught me that the ability to see things differently is a very valuable tool.
As a recovering perfectionist, it took (and still can take) a long time for me to appreciate an unexpected development. Like my younger self, Farmer McPhee has a clear vision for every one of the perfect yellow lemons growing in his orchard. They will be used for sweet cakes, zingy sherbets, ice-cold drinks, and — [gasp] — he discovers a glaring glitch that could ruin all of his plans. Luckily, not everyone sees things like Farmer McPhee and a glitch for one person is pure inspiration for another.
Farmer McPhee isn't ready for what he's about to discover among his cherished bright yellow fruits . . . a red lemon! Readers young and old will delight in the deliciously vibrant world that acclaimed author-illustrator, Bob Staake, has created. Now available as an affordable Dragonfly paparback!
There is something so magical about creating art and bringing an idea to life. As a writer and an art teacher, I love watching artists of any age find their own inspiration and joy in creating. I have used these books to launch all kinds of projects, from paintings to pottery, for every age and stage of artist. I hope you will find inspiration in these pages, too!
This is one of the most creative and magical books I’ve ever seen. Every time I share this book, I hear a gasp when I get halfway through it and flip it upside down to continue the story, upside down and backward. You have to see it to believe it! For older students, it’s a great way to introduce the tricky concept of negative space.
This book isn't just the STORY of a family’s round trip - it IS a round trip! Read forward and look at the sights, then flip the book over to see something different on the way back. The black-and-white illustrations for the trip into the city become something different when the book is turned upside down for the journey home. Clouds turn into puddles, fields of wheat turn into rain, lightning becomes mountain trails, and building lights morph into stars. "Round Trip" was featured on Reading Rainbow, the acclaimed PBS-TV series celebrating books and reading.
In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.
Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…
I love wordless books immoderately, and I also love books that have meta, surreal, or magical realism elements. This list combines these two features! I was personally so happy that The Red Book was described in a review as “a wordless mind trip for tots,” and I think all the books on this list would perfectly fit that description (and much, much more!) too.
I love being in the gentle and cheery little world of Polo! Polo is a small dog who travels via ingenious visual twists of perspective and imagery. I both admire the cleverness and invention, and enjoy the cozy worlds and friends that Polo meets along the way. The Polo books are unique in being truly action-packed while also being very tranquil and peaceful.
Equipped with a backpack full of supplies, Polo sets off on a little boat--and on a series of delightful adventures that take him across (and under) the ocean, to an island and a frozen iceberg, to space and home again, with a world of magical encounters along the way. Polo's journey is packed with incident and expression; 80 pages of seamless, satisfying picture storytelling are perfectly targeted to the youngest reader. Unique, dynamic, and playful, The Adventures of Polo calls to mind the worlds of film animation, comics, and classic books from Harold and the Purple Crayon to The Snowman--and…
I love wordless books immoderately, and I also love books that have meta, surreal, or magical realism elements. This list combines these two features! I was personally so happy that The Red Book was described in a review as “a wordless mind trip for tots,” and I think all the books on this list would perfectly fit that description (and much, much more!) too.
This is such a beautiful book to me. In it, a lost child from a crowded urban environment encounters a mythic deer who takes her on a journey filled with wonders. I don’t know how, but the author manages to convey such believable tenderness and deep connection between this large wild animal and the small child. The art is made with a soft pencil style that is a perfect match for the atmospheric, dreamy, and magical content.
Hailed by Entertainment Weekly and the Wall Street Journal as a best book of the year, this gorgeous and imaginative story—part picture book, part graphic novel—is utterly transporting and original. USA Today declared it “a compelling and melancholy debut from an important new talent" as well as "an expansive and ageless book full of wonder, sadness, and wild bursts of imagination.” And like Shaun Tan's The Arrival and Raymond Briggs's The Snowman, it is quickly becoming a modern classic.
A little girl—lost and alone—follows a mysterious stag deep into the woods, and, like…
A part of me is reluctant to recommend books on art. The same part of me is reluctant to write books on art. After all, a work of art should speak for itself. Then I remembered that for most contemporary art shows, a catalog is produced, and that catalog typically features an explanatory essay by some sympathetic scholar or critic. If the art of today requires verbal elaboration, how much more will the art of the past—especially the remote past—require such commentary? These recommendations are a selection of some favorite texts about how art comes into being—and is part of our being.
In the late 1990s, when I was writing a short history of the Phaidon Press–a pioneer imprint of art books both affordable and beautiful—I used to visit Gombrich at his home in north London. His own career as art historian was entwined with Phaidon’s fortunes. I asked him if it were true that he used to get an adolescent to read his texts to check for clarity of expression.
The legend was exaggerated, of course. But Gombrich’s prose still strikes me as admirably free of academic obfuscation, and this book is filled with lucid discussion of what is happening, perceptually and psychologically, when artists invite viewers into their ‘worlds’.
Considered a great classic by all who seek for a meeting ground between science and the humanities, Art and Illusion examines the history and psychology of pictorial representation in light of present-day theories of visual perception information and learning. Searching for a rational explanation of the changing styles of art, Gombrich reexamines many ideas on the imitation of nature and the function of tradition. In testing his arguments he ranges over the history of art, noticing particularly the accomplishments of the ancient Greeks, and the visual discoveries of such masters as Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt, as well as the…
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
It’s been fantastic to work in computer vision, especially when it is used to build biometric systems. I and my 80 odd PhD students have pioneered systems that recognise people by the way they walk, by their ears, and many other new things too. To build the systems, we needed computer vision techniques and architectures, both of which work with complex real-world imagery. That’s what computer vision gives you: a capability to ‘see’ using a computer. I think we can still go a lot further: to give blind people sight, to enable better invasive surgery, to autonomise more of our industrial society, and to give us capabilities we never knew we’d have.
David Marr shaped the field of computer vision in its early days. His seminal book laid the structure for interpreting images and one which is still largely followed. He popularised notions of the primal sketch and his work on edge detection led to one of the most sophisticated approaches. His work and influence continue to endure despite his early death: we missed and miss him a lot.
Available again, an influential book that offers a framework for understanding visual perception and considers fundamental questions about the brain and its functions.
David Marr's posthumously published Vision (1982) influenced a generation of brain and cognitive scientists, inspiring many to enter the field. In Vision, Marr describes a general framework for understanding visual perception and touches on broader questions about how the brain and its functions can be studied and understood. Researchers from a range of brain and cognitive sciences have long valued Marr's creativity, intellectual power, and ability to integrate insights and data from neuroscience, psychology, and computation. This…
