El Arenque Rojo by Gonzalo Trenor and Alicia Varela

This international favorite is also on my top ten list, and it contains a brilliant twist on the literary concept of a red herring. The reader is free to follow the actual red herring along the pages of this wordless book, but in doing so, he or she will miss the stories of the many other characters. Destined to be read multiple times so that you can follow along with each of the characters, this book will provide hours of entertainment and endless prompts for creative writing.

From the rationale provided on the 2013 Silent Books to the World Honour List: "This is an album without words that urges the reader to invent and to recount stories in a playful and festive atmosphere. The pictures, at once both rich and complex yet dainty and light, direct our gaze to search for hidden details, urging us to look at the huge lawn over and over again to discover minor yet fascinating episodes . . . "

El Arenque Rojo [The Red Herring] by Gonzalo Trenor & Alicia Varela. Spain: SM, 2012. [9788467556858]

The Flower Man by Mark Ludy

It would be difficult to declare my one favorite book out of all of the wordless picturebooks I have read, but this one certainly makes my top ten list! It captured my heart on the very first reading, and my appreciation has grown for it exponentially with each subsequent perusal. Exquisitely detailed scenes of a bleak village start showing signs of light and hope when an elderly visitor arrives. He has purchased a run-down house in the midst of a grey, dreary area, surrounded by people that are in various stages of despondency. As he fixes up his place, color is restored, and a small gesture - giving a flower to a girl passing by - is the stimulus for the color to spread. The metamorphosis is breathtaking, and the ending reveals an unforeseen new beginning.  

I was curious about why the book's creator chose to tell this particular story in a book without text, so I sent him an email and asked for his perspective. This was his reply: "simply put, a wordless book offers the reader an opportunity to discover their own story. Their investigation, be it limited or thorough, rewards them and the story becomes that much more meaningful - if indeed they uncover things that at first glance others might have missed. No text is instructing them on what to get and the author is hands off in the transaction."

The Flower Man by Mark Ludy. United States of America: Green Pastures Publishing, 2005. [9780966427646]

Welcome to my blog!

Today is the day that I receive my MLIS from Dominican University, and it seems fitting to commemorate this achievement with starting a blog!

For a little over two years, I have been studying a variety of topics related to library service, and for my final course I developed an independent study project about excellence in international wordless picturebooks. In addition to books deemed worthy through awards and honors by Caldecott committees, Notable Books for a Global Society, the Silent Books Contest, USBBY's Outstanding International Books, and the International Youth Library's White Ravens, I also reviewed many books that were part of IBBY's Silent Books from the World to Lampedusa project, which established the first library on the island of Lampedusa for local children and refugees from Africa and the Middle East. A spreadsheet of all of the books on those lists can be found here: Worldwide Wordless Book List

Many of these excellent wordless picturebooks are available for purchase and through interlibrary loan in the United States. With the assistance of ALA's International Relations Office, I had the privilege of participating in the ALA-BIB exchange program and spending time in Munich at the International Youth Library reviewing the books in their collection that I was unable to access here.

The purpose of this blog is to share what I have learned with a wider audience, including my impressions of individual books, ideas to consider in relation to this specific type of resource, and suggestions for how to use them in library and classroom settings. Over time, I will include all of the books that I reviewed for my project, along with recently published titles and books that I consider noteworthy even if they weren't on one of the lists mentioned above.

One of the many beautiful things about wordless picturebooks is that they can be enjoyed by people diverse in many ways. Since there is no barrier of language, they appeal to audiences well beyond the borders of the country in which they are published. I invite you to share them with me, and offer your ideas so that together we can give a greater voice to wordless picturebooks from around the world.