The Bored Book

by David Michael Slater, Doug Keith (Illustrator)

Overview

Now available in paperback! A brother and sister are bored and irritated visiting their grandfather. There's no TV, no video games or computers - only books! Sent by their grandfather into the attic, they discover a dusty volume that is unlike all the others. When they open it, it expands into a giant map. As the map grows larger and larger, filling the attic, the children fall into adventures that take them all over the world, face to face with sharks, pirates, knights, even an abominable snowman. Suddenly their visit is anything but boring! The Bored Book uses stunning illustrations, with no text, to remind youngsters of the unique adventures to be found in books. The hardcover edition of The Bored Book was nominated for the 2011 Sakura Medal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781772290189
Publisher:	Simply Read Books
Publication date:	10/24/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.80(w) x 9.70(h) x 0.20(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

David Michael Slater teaches middle school in Portland, Oregon, where he lives with his wife and son. David has written many award-winning books, including "Cheese Louise!", "The Ring Bear," and "Ned Loses His Head." David is also the author of the teen series, "Sacred Books," and "Selfless," a novel for adults.

Doug Keith began his professional career as a commercial artist in New York City, eventually relocating to Seattle, WA where he started his own art studio in 1983. Since then he has illustrated over forty picture books, designed and illustrated a number of alphabets, sculpted characters for garden statuary and received numerous fine art commissions. Doug often contracts with Seattle’s EMP Museum where he uses his creative skills to enhance their unique exhibits.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 1–4—It's difficult to determine the audience for this wordless picture book, which is a watered-down version of Todd Strasser's The Pagemaster (Scholastic, 1994). Opening black-and-white sketches show a brother and sister fighting while a grandfatherly man is trying to read in a room lined with bookshelves. Tired of their squabbling, he pulls aside a bookcase to reveal a hidden staircase. Climbing it, the children find themselves in an attic full of cobweb-covered tomes and pick up The Bored Book. As they open it, color floods from the pages, lighting up their astonished faces. The pages fold out to a huge mural that takes up the entire room and depicts many unrelated scenes. The siblings get sucked into one picture and find themselves on an icy slope facing what may be the Abominable Snowman, and in another, they confront pirates. After many adventures, they return to the old man in the dusty attic (now drawn in full color) and show him the mysterious volume. He calmly shows them shelves of titles such as Treasure Island and Sinbad. The children choose a book and are seen happily reading from it together. Keith's illustrations are too frightening for young audiences, but children who are old enough to read Treasure Island will not be engaged by a series of drawings about terrified kids running away from what the book flap calls "the adventure of a lifetime."—Martha Simpson, Stratford Library Association, CT

School Library Journal

Two quarrelsome preteen sibs are exiled to a dusty attic full of books and find one (cleverly titled "The Bored Book") that unfolds massively to cast the pair into quick encounters with a troll, pirates, a squad of knights in armor and a dragon. Having made their escape, the lad and lass discover that each scene came from a certain literary classic and so proceed to settle down happily to read one such (unidentified) together. Keith's illustrations do little to turn Slater's narrative into a fully realized literary adventure. The dimly penciled "real" world gives way to muddy color when the found volume unfolds like a giant map, both children are as crudely drawn as the generic places through which they tumble and the jumbled plotline dissolves into complete incoherence at the end. Michael Garland's Miss Smith's Incredible Storybook (2003) and Barbara Lehman's Red Book (2004) are but two of several better uses of the book-as-gateway trope. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews

04/27/2015
Slater (Cheese Louise!) wordless picture book has a message—but what is it? In a series of gray penciled spreads, a grandfather distracts a pair of fractious grandchildren by showing them the secret door to his attic. There they discover a stack of copies of The Bored Book, whose pages unfold like an elaborate, outsize map. (When they open the book, the pages burst into color, and so do their surroundings.) Brother and sister dive into the panels, but find only danger; they're greeted by a yeti with terrifying teeth, pirates with glistening lips and shining knives—even a peaceful medieval landscape turns out to contain a dragon. Retreating with relief to their grandfather's library, the siblings find refuge in Treasure Island and the stories of King Arthur. The children spend a lot of time yelling and grimacing, and the grandfather remains opaque. Keith (Something Special) is at his best when portraying evildoers. Slater aims to celebrate books, but readers may conclude that reading is good only because it's a whole lot safer than exploring. Ages 5—up. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW - Children's Bookshelf - Feb 12, 2010
This wordless book begins perfectly, with an image of two bored siblings fighting on the sofa in Grandfather’s study while he looks on morosely. Then he opens a secret door leading to a cobwebby attic where a mysterious tome awaits: like characters in a wittier version of the Magic Tree House series, the brother and sister fall through the pages and into perilous adventures involving snow monsters and pirates. We get the message, and so do they.
 
 
 
Resource Links
This wordless picture book is about two siblings, a boy and a girl, who become very bored while staying with their grandfather. In response to their bickering, their grandfather opens a secret door to the attic where the children find a magical book with a huge fold out map. Each square in the map is a door to another world. Although the children are unaware of it, each of these worlds represents a different book. They encounter pirates from Treasure Island and a dragon from King Aruther and the Knights of the Round Table. These exhilarating and terrifying adventures bring the children closer together. When they return to their grandfather's library, they look at the covers on the books and realize that they have just experienced the power of reading. Eager to jump back into another adventure, the children pick up a book and start reading.
This beautifully illustrated book celebrates what we all love about books: their power to transport us anywhere. The lack of text means that readers can use their imaginations and be creative about what happens to the children when they enter the different worlds. This book could be a good starting point for a discussion about the joy of reading.
Thematic Links: Reading, Adventures

Hodge-Podge Books
"Wordless picture books were a popular trend when I opened shop in 1982. They have continued since on what I would call a lesser degree. However, a new and exciting wordless book is now available. THE BORED BOOK by David Michael Slater, illustrations by Doug Keith (Simply Read Books, 2009, $16.95) opens in a living room scene where an adult and two children are spending  an afternoon. The adult is quietly reading as the two children are engaged in physical play. The adult moves a bookcase exposing a set of steps. The children scramble up the stairs to find them selves in a dusty attic filled with bookshelves.  When the children take THE BORED BOOK from the shelf the black and white illustrations turn to color and the adventure begins. When they have experienced a series of harrowing adventures, the children return to the first room with the adult. Now they find  the the books of the adventures they have experienced.  Books like TREASURE ISLAND  and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME. The artwork here is spectacular and sweeping in its scope. The dream sequences are one part frightening but more mystical in nature. They compel the reader to turn the page anticipating and questioning, what’s next? A most satisfying read, believe me."
 
Review from Confuzzled Books
  Here is a picture book that is just that. Full of fun and imaginary pictures, no words. I described the first half of this picture book on Twitter as I read it and I realized you could describe the picture differently each time. The first pages say so much about the story: Grandpa is sitting in a chair with a book on his lap, watching his grandchildren fight because they are bored. What I enjoyed most about this book was the colorful drawings. (Not all the book is in color, some of it is in detailed pencil drawings.) These pictures say so much about the adventures you can take while reading, whether you are being pushed off a plank by pirates or chased by a yeti. Books can make everything less boring.
 
 
"The book arrived yesterday, and WOW - it is AMAZING! My kids were absolutely riveted!!! Picture this - the kids are fighting and bickering and mommy (me) is yelling and then... the doorbell rings. There is a package. The kids stop yelling at eachother and pounce on the package like a starved lion pounces on a piece of fresh meat. Tearing wildly, manilla stuffing everywhere. They get to the kill, and it's, THE BORED book! I sit them down and explain what a special type of book it is. I start to "read" it to them. The first picture is exactly like they were, bickering, and bored. They are quiet as church mice, eyes wide as saucers.
Now, the miracle. I'm making dinner. The bickering starts up again. I say to my daughter, "Honey, why don't you read the Bored Book to your brother!" She says, "OKAY!" and for the next 15 minutes, I don't hear a SOUND! She is on the couch, "reading" the book to him. Just like the boy and girl at the end of the story.
The book is just AWESOME! David Michael Slater's creativity and imagination knows no bounds. He is truly one of a kind! The story absolutely ROCKS!  - Sally Shields, Author
 

From the Publisher