Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz (Children's Literature)
Inspired by the art of M.C. Escher, Johnson tells a story to be read first from left to right and front to back, and then, turning the book around, back in the other direction. Mauk, our young hero, is the apprentice to a Master building a grand Palazzo in the middle of a lake. Answering a summons, Mauk rows across the lake. He finds that the workmen are busy there, but the palace looks strangely different. Workers are falling, hanging out of windows, walking on their hands; the fountain is falling up. The Master blames Mauk for changing the drawings, but Mauk has not been allowed to do more than sharpen pencils, except… Mauk runs from the angry Master, knowing all the ways out, and being cheered for the inverted palace. The odd tale ends, and then leads us to turn the book around and begin again. Built soundly on the foundation laid by Escher, the romp is visually recounted in a crafty sequence of scenes with floors, windows, and spiral staircases apparently “borrowed” from some of the Master’s drawings. The challenging double-page illustrations are produced using mixed media in tones of sepia. The effect is mystical, and our puzzlement is only partially reduced by the simple line of text running around the pictures. There is a toy-like quality to the scenes and the characters. The endpages come from Escher’s optical illusion of patterns of swimming fish … or are they flying birds? A note adds factual information. 2010, Houghton Mifflin Books for Children/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $17.00. Ages 4 to 8.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2010 (Vol. 78, No. 8))
An homage to M.C. Escher's head-tilting, mind-reeling artwork, this disorienting book asks children to stretch their imaginations and travel on a circuitous journey outside traditional, comfortable reading experiences. Mauk, an architect's apprentice, wakes up in an upside-down world, and readers follow him as he makes a baffling commute to work. They also have a difficult trip ahead of them, as navigating the book is an arduous task. Children must use arrows to know where and how to continue reading the text, all while ignoring words in lighter lettering that run backward along the tops of pages. At the back of the book, they must flip it upside down to continue reading. While the altered perspective endows the illustrations with sudden clarity and richer meaning, readers will remain only mildly enthralled. Drab, blurry monochromatic color and flat, soulless imagery lack Escher's exhilarating, engaging precision. When readers finally reach the ending, they realize it actually lies at the very beginning, on the very first page, using the very words that started Mauk's whole adventure. Whoa! Few children will persevere through this exhausting journey. 2010, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 32p, $16.99. Category: Picture book. Ages 6 to 8. © 2010 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.