Dusting my bookshelves this weekend, I came across a couple of Georges Simenon titles, Dirty Snow and Three Rooms in Manhattan. I love those books, I think to myself. Maybe I should put them on my iPhone as calculated additions to the permanent ambulatory library in my pocket.

But the thought of a library always at my beck and call got me thinking about all the books I’ve read because there was nothing else to read. The Thorn Birds, for example. Or, out of the same isolated bookshelf, Jane Goodall’s My Life with the Chimpanzees and William Burroughs’ Factotum. (How those three books ended up in the same small library in a house with a bed, a garden, and two enormous doors is provoking, wouldn’t you say?)

There was the year spent teaching English to fifth and sixth graders. I was not in India, but the only English books happened to be Kipling’s collected works in pocket-sized hardcover. And there was my mother’s house one summer, broke, and Dickens. Or an ornamental Jane Eyre from a leather-bound collection of classics bought on subscription by my great-grandmother. No one had ever read any of them and I had to dig up a letter opener to slice the pages apart. It was terribly romantic.

So, here’s the question: Would I have read Jane Eyre at some point later in life if it hadn’t been in the glass-fronted bookcases of my home? Maybe. Although, it has never been required in any course I’ve taken. No one has ever recommended it or handed me a copy. (So sad.) And it’s not a book I recall seeing on jungle bookshelves (I do, however, remember a copy of Nabokov’s Lolita in a Maryknoll mission in Guatemala) or foreign language school bookshelves. If, at the age of twelve, I’d been offered the choice between Jane Eyre and, say, a contemporary equivalent to Twilight would I have chosen the former? Would my son be reading the Economist Book of Obituaries if it weren’t the only thing in print in the bathroom?

Interesting to ponder, the pros and cons of having everything you ever wanted. It’s hard to be critical of choice when the other option is totalitarian; on the other hand, necessity can make for strange and wonderful book choices.

My mom liked to tell us that during the Depression, she would only get one gift for Christmas and it was always a Frank L. Baum book. Although we didn’t quite believe that anyone could be so deprived (my dad used to say he had to pick rocks out of the fields and walk ten miles to baseball), the treasure was there for us to examine anytime we wanted. She had all the books, but the only one we really liked was the original. I still have it, but no one’s read it in years because it’s a mess. The boards are / have fallen off, the pages are weeping. The only reason I’ve kept it is because I learned to read from it.

Well, I’ve found a worthy replacement. Wait until you see this! It’s from Counterpoint and it’s called Frank L. Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, Illustrated by Graham Rawle (978-1-58243-455-1). I’ve never heard of the guy before, but he seems to have accumulated plenty of accolades for previous collage work, and by collage I mean blending illustration and text. This is no exception. The typography in this unabridged version of the classic is wonderful, but what’s going to catch your eye are the illustrations. Using real items (dolls, masks, fruits), he’s placed them in miniature landscapes to create the most amazing Over the Rainbow ever. But it’s still Dorothy and Tinman and Toto, so fear not: even if you grew up with the Judy Garland version, you’ll find something to love. Check out the amazing Emerald City, or the field of poppies. If the Depression is getting you down and you can only give one book, make it this one.


Read other reviews of Best Picture Books at our 24/7 Bookshelf.