Kaleidoscope by Brian Selznick

In some ways this feels like an easy book to read but in other ways this is a book filled with complex layers of imagery, emotion and tiny story fragments. Your brain might struggle to form each element into a complete picture. I guess this is just like the fractured colours of glass that you see through a kaleidoscope. The patterns in a kaleidoscope are very appealing but also incomplete so perhaps we should not expect to see a complete picture in this book with which uses the word kaleidoscope as its title and form. 

Our unnamed narrator has a good friend called James. James is wise. James is elusive. James appears and disappears. James is in the real world and then not. The narrator remembers time spent with James during their childhood and equally he grieves his passing. 

Here we have another book with a odd array of suggested ages. As I read this book (in one sitting) I thought this was most certainly a YA title for ages 12+.  Books Up North (see link below) say 10+ and adult; Kirkus 11+ up to adult; Commonsense Media 12+; Scholastic (the publisher) say Grade 4 and up; and online bookseller Booktopia say 8+. 

A bookseller explained this book to me saying it was a series of interconnected short stories and yes that is true but unlike other short story collections this book works best if you read from front to back especially the first time then you could revisit the stories that intrigue or excite you. I certainly had a few favourite stories or examples of stories from this book that resonated with me and also I saw some fabulous sentences that could be used with senior Primary or junior High School students as writing prompts.

Here are some sentences that appealed to me:

"I looked out over the water and wondered if anything truly existed beyond the horizon. Reports of monsters beneath the waves and gods above the clouds had been around since the dawn of time."

"Most people think time is a machine that needs to be oiled and wound with a key. They think it's something you control and maintain. But maybe it's more wild than that. Maybe it's bigger and stranger. Maybe time is uncontrollable, and endless, and dangerous. Like a forest eating a house."

"It was a spring morning when the knight first appeared on my dusty horizon, his ruby-encrusted armour gleaming in the sun like a burning meteor come down to earth."

Stories that intrigued and delighted me:

Chrysalis page 153

The Story of Mr Gardner page 101

The Quest page 69

This book made me think of The Little Prince but I seem to be only reviewer to mention this. The other book you could compare with Keleidoscope is The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. I would also link this book with titles by Australian award winning author Shaun Tan - Tales from Outer Suburbia and Tales of the Inner City and also The Rules of Summer. 

You can hear Brian Selznick reading from his book here. If you click each of these review comments you can read a little more about the way this book works - not exactly the plot - but fragments of stories and connections to bigger themes.

While each tale seems like a sliver of a larger story we’ll never learn, we get the impression that we’re hearing the best part. Perhaps that is enough. New York Times

While Selznick trusts readers to draw their own conclusions about what is true, he offers rich companionship on the voyage. Kirkus Star review

Few books are this impossible to summarise. Selznick, who already has written remarkable works, writes a complex book for young readers that is one where themes and metaphors are waiting to be explored. Waking Brain Cells

Readers will see that in Selznick’s carefully rendered artwork, the disjointed narratives, the stories that almost but don’t quite but maybe do intersect. Kaleidoscope is a meditative and ultimately hopeful book, ideal for readers seeking a puzzle-like diversion.  MissPrint

You have never read a book like this before. You need to meet it on its own terms. Read for love. Read for loss. Read for grief.  Read for hope. When you’re done, you’re going to want to talk about it. Give it to a colleague or a kid or teen in your life. Compare what they saw within it to what you saw within it. Books Up North

Other famous books by Brian Selznick: