How to Live Forever - Hardcover

Thompson, Colin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067987898X ISBN 13: 9780679878988

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers, 1996

Synopsis

Book lovers of all ages can take an enchanted journey through a labyrinthine fantasy library filled with every book ever written, where the shelves come alive at night, like teeming miniature cities.  One night, a young boy who resides in a cookbook stumbles upon a long-lost file card for a book called How to Live Forever and sets off to find the missing volume.  Thus begins a journey through mystifying literary mazes in Colin Thompson's tour de force of wit, wisdom, and boundless imagination.

About this title

About the Author:

Colin Thompson is fast becoming a cult.  His incredibly detailed pictures, packed with bizarre touches, worlds within worlds, and wondrous visual jokes, are addictive.  Colin's book Ruby , an international hit, was linked to a contest with a real vintage automobile as the prize.  His earlier titles include The Paper Bag Prince and Looking for Atlantis .  After leaving art school, and subsequently, the London School of Film Technique, Colin worked for a time at the BBC before moving to the Outer Herbrides, where he began twenty years of self-employment in ceramics.  Colin now works full time as an author and illustrator.  

From Publishers Weekly:

Libraries will never look the same now that Thompson (Ruby; The Paper Bag Prince) has gotten ahold of them. Readers of his new picture book are plunged into a realm of boundless imagination, a library where, after hours, the shelves come to life. Rows of books become rows of townhouses with cozily lit windows, and walkways through the stacks become canals full of bustling traffic. The story centers on Peter, whose home is a cookbook, and who is searching high and low for a missing tome entitled "How to Live Forever." He eventually finds it, of course, but after considering the advice of an odd creature called the Ancient Child, decides not to read it. The plot is almost beside the point?what fascinates is the quirky, highly precise world Thompson has created. His art is exquisitely detailed, full of wry embellishments that beg for extended viewing. Many of the visual puns are too sophisticated for younger readers but will delight adults. When Peter visits a Chinese garden, for instance, a turn of the page moves him from full-color environs to the cool blue-and-white of the classic Blue Willow china pattern. And a shelf devoted to food contains such sly titles as "The Guns of Macaroni," while the automotive section sports "Kind Hearts and Cadillacs." A multilayered book that excites interest on several levels, it issues an open invitation to a world readers will want to visit again and again. All ages.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 067987898X
• ISBN 13: 9780679878988
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 1