Zoom

Zoom

by Istvan Banyai

As seen on the Serial podcast, season 2, episode 1 ("Dustwun")!

Open this wordless book and zoom from a farm to a ship to a city street to a desert island. But if you think you know where you are, guess again. For nothing is ever as it seems in Istvan Banyai's sleek, mysterious landscapes of pictures within pictures, which will tease and delight readers of all ages.

"This book has the fascinating appeal of such works of visual trickery as the Waldo and Magic Eye books." —Kirkus Reviews

"Ingenious." —The Horn Book

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Art, Fiction, Graphic Novels, Realistic Fiction, Comics

64 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1995

About the author

Illustrator and animator

Reviews

[هدى يحيى · Rating 4 out of 5]

نحن لسنا إلا نقطة في محيط
بل ذرة في نقطة في محيط
في كون شاسع لا تمثل فيه أرضنا أكثر من نقطة زرقاء باهتة

في تتابع مذهل وصفحات قليلة ينقلك الرسام من عالم إلى عالم
مع كل صفحة رسمة جديدة
توضح بتقنية ال
zoom out
إلى أي مدى نحن صغار

عد إلى صفحات الكتاب الموجه للأطفال
وفكر في موضعك في هذا الكون
وإلى أي مدى استطعت كبشري رغم صغرك المتناهي
أن تستكشف وتتعلم وتحلق بين بعض من أجدادك النجوم
...

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic introduction on how to look at perspective - microscopic to telescopic. Will really encourage children to start to appreciate perspective. If you know of a small child who is interested in cinematography then this book could be of particular interest to you; will fuel imagination and creativity in a very unique and fun way.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, I just loved this. It should maybe be called “Zoom Out” because the frames start off close up in full zoom mode and work outward. I love how as a reader I kept thinking I knew “where I was” and kept being shown otherwise, and I enjoyed how with 2 or 3 pages I had to look at them 2 or 3 times, and not just once, to figure out what was going on.

This is a very clever picture book. It’s a wonderful springboard for discussing perspective and perception, and terrific for pre-readers to be able to read on their own with full understanding. I’d have reread this book many times when I was young. I have its sequel Re-Zoom at home and plan to read it next.

I do wish the ending had been slightly more satisfying; I wish it had somehow come full circle, and I can’t say the illustrations on their own are 5 star pictures for me, not at all, but the complete package is amazing; hence, the 5 stars I’ve given it. 4 ½ stars

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's books like these- the ones I read as a child- that really helped shape the person I am today. The Phantom Tollbooth also falls into this category, and whereas that one built a foundation for my love of knowledge, language, and reading, this one helped to form inside me a love of the unknown, as well as a mind that's always trying to see the bigger picture.

As for the book- well, everything you need to know is in the title. It's a series of images that zoom out more and more, revealing that nothing is at first what it seemed. A valuable lesson indeed, even (and perhaps especially) as kids raised on this book enter their adult years.

[Práxedes Rivera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool little book about perspective --must be read to be appreciated (which will take all of four minutes!) A very nice Theory of Knowledge book.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

As you zoom in and out, each page reveals another layer of our world. Simple, colorful, and original. Bravo!

[George]

The Office’s Michael Scott: [reading off a piece of paper] Little girl in a field holding a flower, we zoom back to find that she’s in the desert and the field is an oasis. Zoom back further the desert is a sandbox in the world’s largest resort hotel. Zoom back further the hotel is actually the playground for the world’s largest prison. But we zoom back further—

Beloved and behated Michael Scott could have illustrated this book, but it lacks his imagination and it’s simply way too short to exist as a physical book. Should have been something you simply scroll through online, give a like, then move on. Even as a children’s picture book it’s lacking.

[Linda (NOT RECEIVING NOTIFICATIONS) · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing children’s picture book! I wish I had this author’s imagination.

[Crystal Marcos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am very impressed with this wordless picture book! I read both Zoom and the follow up book Re-Zoom back to back. I enjoyed the experience. The illustrations worked well with the concept of the book. I had to show this to my husband when I was done. He is sort of getting into photography, so I thought he would appreciate the zooming aspect of the story. I enjoyed it all over again with him. My 23 month old daughter really liked the way I read these books to her. I sang a tune as I went along adding a few words at a time on some pages. "This is the girl looking at the farm, this is a boy looking at the girl looking at the farm, etc." She picked up the book when I was done and imitated me. We really had fun with these. It is a clever wordless picture book all ages would enjoy. Recommending this one to my friends.

[Abril G. Karera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creo que ya podríamos considerar este libro como un clásico en la historia de los libros silentes. Gracias a apuestas como esta descubrí el maravilloso mundo de la lectura de imágenes y los muchos mundos que pueden ofrecer. No me cansa nunca.

[Ahmed Oraby]

All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was introduced to this fine book by the principal of my loving son's elementary school when I was a volunteer there. She--the principal--pushed it into my hands one day when I stormed into her office..... "Here, read this while I finish up something...." This was her tactic for anyone who stormed into her office....typically an upset parent or frazzled teacher. As she--the principal--explained to me, by the time you finish 'reading' this book, whatever was upsetting you seems to have vanished into space!

I have a stash I keep to mail to frazzled friends and clients....others I have hand-delivered.....it's another secret delight!~

[giso0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you end up saying "Now let's go through it backwards!" it means it's a success.

[Dani K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zoom is a wordless picture book that defies the familiar conventions of storytelling in favor of a playful critique of individual perspective. The reader begins the experience by opening to a rather plain title page that contains the title, the author/illustrator’s names, and the publisher against a black background. The only other image on the page is the white outline of a pencil that seems to hover against the darkness, a shadow image in the depths of space.

From there, the book comes to a series of full bleed openings, where on the recto side of the opening is a vibrantly colorful image and on the verso side is a blank, black page. The first image reveals a series of jagged, red spikes to the reader. (The reminded me of the ridges on the back of a desert lizard.) As the reader proceeds to the next opening, their expectations of the image are defied, as the reds spikes are revealed to be the comb atop a roster’s head. Each opening proceeds apace with the reader making an assumption about the image—well, this must be a painting of a roster because the background is white—only to realize their mistake at the next turn—nope, that’s a rooster standing on a fence in front of a white wall.

As the reader continues, the nature of the book invites them to explore unconventional guesses as they slowly zoom out of the original image. Having already zoomed out from one advertisement, the reader begins to speculate about what text they will be drawn from next time. This self-referentiality prevents the reader from suspending the realistic world. Instead, it keeps the reader involved as an active participant in constructing the text. You are not allowed to sit back and simply consume this book. It forces you to think about it the entire time.

Clever in its simplicity, this book gives a true sense of a world within a world and reminds the reader that all printed images are snapshots of events that really did happen somewhere at some time. As an instructional tool, Zoom might be useful in teaching readers to look for details and to examine things closely before making assumptions. In fact, closer inspection of the image progression reveals clues that the reader might not notice in the first read through. Each picture sequence is colorized with particular atmospheric details in mind. For example, the roster’s comb and the white wall behind his head are speckled with colors that seem out of sorts with the setting. Some of these speckles even overlap the images of the roster and the wall, showing them to actually be a single flat image (a magazine advertisement).

This being said, after several large “reveals,” I became disappointed because all of the zoom outs continued to bring the reader out of another printed medium. Only the final reveal leaves the printed world behind.

As the book comes to an end, the blank, black pages on the verso side of each opening are revealed to function in two ways. First, the lack of design or color allows the reader to focus their attention on the color “zoomed” image. Second, when the final zoom occurs and the reader is taken to the final Google-Earth-like conclusion, the black panels metaphorically encompass the reader in the darkness of space. Earth is shown to be just as small as the initial image of the roster’s comb in the scheme of things.

[Leigh Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

ZOOM by Istvan Banyai is a book that takes readers on an interesting and fun journey. It allows readers to zoom in and zoom out of the story and images and try to figure out what they are seeing and once readers think they know what they see, they have to guess again because nothing is as it seems and there’s nothing readers can do but hang on and enjoy the story.
This is a vertically oriented picturebook. The jacket cover and book covers are dark orange, yellow, and black. These colors are intentional because black may represent the full bleed black pages that are used throughout the story and the zoom out at the end of the story into space or thin air. The dark orange and yellow colors may represent the colors mainly used throughout the story. Characters mainly wore yellow or orange and certain objects were colored yellow. The front and back end papers are also black. The font used for the title (ZOOM) gives readers an idea of what the story is about because the sizes of the letters suggest zooming in or out. The story switches from full bleed pages to having borders or frames with a different design that suggest the picture will zoom out and be another picture that was zoomed in. The full bleed black pages used throughout the story on the left pages is also part of the narrative structure because it may represent the idea of readers briefly shutting their eyes when the pictures in the story zooms out and gives readers a new picture to look out. The illustrations were interesting because they told the story and they moved the reader along the story. No texts or dialogue were used to move readers along, only pictures which was interesting. The illustrations successfully demonstrated zooming in and out of the pictures through the use of point of view and distance. In the picture the viewer is positioned from a bird’s eye view when the picture zooms out and we get a broader sense of what the whole picture is about but then when we turn the page it happens all over again, we are zoomed out the picture again. We also view the pictures from a long distance which emphasizes being zoomed out from the picture. For example the story zooms out further and we get the looking in perspective like the characters in the book, looking at the rooster, and then the view of the rooster gets smaller as we zoom further out and have the perspective of entering the doorway. Overall I liked the story, mainly the ending because it makes you wonder as a reader how small things may actually be when zoomed out and compared to much larger ideas, like how small our planet actually is in space, which makes readers think of the notion of infinity and the endless world of possibilities.

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hungarian-born artist Istvan Banyai's debut picture-book, Zoom, which first saw print in 1995, and was followed by Re-Zoom in 1998, is a boldly illustrated wordless journey, one that takes the reader (viewer?) on to an increasingly distant point from its original subject. It should, as my friend Lisa notes in her own review, really be called "Zoom Out." Opening with a close-up shot of a rooster's comb, then backing up to a view of the rooster as a whole, then to a scene encompassing some children looking at the rooster, and so on, the book concludes at a far remove from its starting place.

I appreciated the concept of Zoom, and found the artwork attention-grabbing, with its shifting (but always vibrant) color palette, and cartoon-like style. Unlike some other notable wordless picture-books (David Wiesner's Flotsam springs to mind in this respect), there is no real story here. That said, there is a visual sequence, and I was distracted, approximately three quarters of the way through (in the scene on the Solomon Islands), to note that Banyai abandons this sequence, in which each image contains the last one, in order to "pull out" in a more general way. It seemed like such a careless thing to do, in an otherwise carefully crafted book, that it particularly stood out to me. Still, leaving that aside, this is an engaging, well-designed book, one that I would recommend to readers looking for wordless picture-books.

[Scarlett · Rating 5 out of 5]

such a simple profound little book to remind young and old alike what widening our perceptions provides in the way of possibilities! my favorite book to give as a gift.

[Anastasia Hutson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zoom
Review by Anastasia Hutson
Zoom by Istvan Banyai is a wordless picture book that continually entices its readers to wonder what is on the next page. The beginning of the book is a close up image of a chicken comb and page by page the images zoom out, showing more of its surroundings. Just when the reader thinks that the image is complete they turn the page to see even more of the story around the initial image. I enjoyed the book because it kept be guessing and wondering what possibly could be on the next page. It was full of surprises and kept me engaged to the storyline. Since this is a wordless picture book, the author made an interesting use of its literary devices. For example, the setting was appealing because it was ever changing, every time the image zoomed out from page to page a new location was revealed to the reader. The setting is important because it’s the whole essence and plot of the book. I believe the setting also played with perspective and how looking at something in a different way or seeing the whole picture can change how we see a glimpse of something. With that, this puts the point of view in the hands of the reader, the book is in the view of the audience. We look at the book how we would look at the world and I believe that that is the whole point. I believe the author put the book in this point of view to challenge the reader in their perspective and all the different ways we can look at the world. This is beneficial to the book because it keeps the reader engaged throughout the whole book, wondering what they are going to see next. This picture book has an interesting use of its visual elements and uses them in a creative way. A common pattern throughout the whole book is every left page is solid black. It seems simple and as though it would serve no purpose but I believe that it contributes to the purpose of the book by adding anticipation. By having the blank black page on every spread it gives the reader room to think about what is coming next in the story. This technique would be the orientation of the picture book because of the precise placement and purpose of the color and page. Color is also another prominent visual device used, the author utilized a lot of saturated colors that made the images very vivid and noticeable. The bright colors gave the story life and by using a full palette of colors I believe that plays into and assists the idea of having different perspectives of the world and people. The genre of wordless picture books is very interesting because it almost defies what we believe books to be and that is for reading. Wordless picture books challenge the reader to use their imagination and think past words to come up with their own story and interpretation which I think is so creative and innovative in the literature world! For example, with zoom, the only words that were in the book were on items that were in the images but everything else was just pictures and from page to page I was forced to use my imagination on what was going to happen next because every frame was zooming out from the previous image, creating a bigger picture from the audience to add to the story they had previously made up for themselves. Having no words while reading a book definitely changes the experience of reading a book but I think it’s a fresh perspective and a fun way to challenge the imagination.

[Rebekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

What first appears to be a simple concept of zooming out continuously, turns out to be such a clever idea and a way of telling many stories at once. The fact it starts with a tiny rooster and then ends with the tiny Earth in the vast expanse of space, means it almost comes full circle. Yes the Earth is big and holds all these stories from around the world, but when compared to the rest of the universe, it is also tiny.

A fun read that actually holds insights into many lives that can be explored further if you give yourself the time.

[Kaetlin V · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zoom by Istvan Banyai is a wordless picturebook that is a series of pictures that start very close-up and then zoom out. The first picture starts with an up close red object, which we find out is a rooster on the next picture. It then zooms out to two children looking at the rooster and then the house and town they are in. We then find out that this town is actually a model that a girl is playing with on a magazine cover. This pattern continues for the rest of book playing on the idea.

I was drawn to this picturebook because it didn’t have any text in it. I’d never read a wordless picturebook before, so it was something that interested me. Reading this for the first time, I didn’t know how I felt about it because it was such a strange and unique book. I didn’t necessarily like how every single page shifted the meaning of the picture on the previous page, but now after analyzing it, this is what makes this book profound.

Because Zoom is a wordless picturebook, Banyai uses a lot of vectors in his illustrations. One of the horizontal vectors occurs on the third illustration of the book. The horizontal line, the window ledge, divides the two children from seeing the rooster outside. This horizontal vector creates distance from the children to the rooster, providing a barrier for the readers. The books consist of two sides on each page. The recto side consists of each brightly colored picture while the verso side is a completely black page. This contrast provides almost a break for the reader for each picture, seeming to give them time to process what was on that page before. Although there wasn’t any text in this book, there are still literary elements. The plot of the story is unique because it seemingly doesn’t have one; however, it’s almost a story within a story. The setting continues to change throughout the book as well with each page. While readers may think that they have the setting pegged down, with each page, their perspective changes.

All of these literary elements add to the general idea of perspective in Zoom. Banyai almost seems to teach readers that things are not always what they see with each flip of the page. In addition, Zoom teaches readers that everything is a part of something else. Every item on each page played a role in the next page, and this continued all the way to the end of the story. Zoom is a delightful read for people of all ages, putting things into perspective (literally) and reminding us that things are not always what they seem.

[Macy]

Zoom is a book that moves from a very small detail out into many other scenes that all come from inside the previous scene. It has no words, it tells the story through visuals only. In order to use this text in a middle school classroom, students could be introduced to it with no context at all in order to lead them to understand the concept of the story. After students have experienced the book, they can be tasked to use it as an illustration and write captions for each page, like a children's book with words. To do this effectively, students can be grouped into small groups and given only a few of the photos to work with for the captioning activity. This will give students a digestible part of the book and the use of many heads together to complete the captioning. After students have captioned their part of the book, the class can assemble the pieces (ideally printed out like slides, captions written with expo on them) to see how cohesively the different stories told through captions translate from the beginning to the end of the book. This can help students see how the same story can have a different impact on different readers (or viewers), and how the reader and what they are reading have an interdependent relationship even though the reader had no hand in writing the text. To further this activity, students can do a writing assignment that follows the same pattern of Zoom, in some way or another. This could be the setting, the amount of characters, the emotional tension, or even something small like the amount of food on a character's plate. All that needs to be consistent is the concept of one small piece becoming the part of something gigantic, like the chicken's mohawk to the entire Earth becoming a small dot in space. The significance of the small beginning to the "zoom" pattern can show students how even the smallest piece of a work, a single word, can have significance in the work as a whole. Furthering that, the conceptual analysis of the "zoom" pattern can help students find their own significance in their class, at school, in their city, and in the world as a whole. The book and the adaptations for instruction have the potential to be very empowering.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wordless picture book starts with an image and continues to "zoom" out, showing that what you see could turn into something else completely.

It is incredible how engaging a wordless picture book can be. Typically, when I think of this type of genre, it is for very young readers who cannot read words. However, this book is an exception! It would take a little bit of an older student to be able to follow the plot line and read the pictures in order. It could be used in the classroom for prediction and sequence of events/snapshots.

The format of the book is interesting, in that Banyai utilizes a single page spread. The left side of each set of pages is black, forcing the reader to really focus on the pictures on the right hand side of the page. This choice allows the reader to focus on these non-moving snapshots. Typically the pictures in a picture book show movement through actions on the page or the corresponding text below, but this text focuses solely on non-moving pictures. It appears that Banyai's pictures are a cross between realistic and cartoon. The colors used are very real, yet the people have a slight hint of cartoon to them.

This book reminds me of the last scene in the movie "Men in Black" when the whole universe as we know it is held in the locker. It really makes you think about what you are looking at and puts life in perspective. I think this book would be a great one of the classroom. Children might have fun making their own version of Zoom using digital cameras. They could also make tag-lines or narrate the text as a fun project. It also might be interesting to select a particular page and brainstorm different alternatives to what the next page could be!

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this wordless picture book, each pages zooms out from the last picture to reveal a bigger picture with more detail. I can see the fun and creative potential for children to make their own 'Zoom' book focussing on their life and experiences that they have had, this could be through English or Art.

Cross Curricular Links:
- English, Describing each photo, Children to make their own 'zoom' books about their lives.
- Science, Discovering the earth, planets and stars.
- Geography, Countries around the world.
- RE, Cultures and other religions.
- Art/DT, Creating own books and own illustrations of own experiences.

[Rebecca Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite wordless picture books! I love how you do not expect what is going to be on the next page and how it all fits together perfectly. This book could be used with any age group in my opinion, as even those who are in EYFS could interpret what is happening in some of the pictures. This also really highlights why books like this should appear within libraries, because it teaches so much about the world and different societies and cultures; additionally so many NC links could be made about them! What I also like is that there is no right or wrong answer when you are interpreting the pictures, and the predictions could be really random too!

A BIG thumbs up from me!

[Tahira Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a picture book with no words. This book shows one picture on each page that is connected to the picture before it. I would use this book to help teach an art lesson or a science lesson. Student's could get neat ideas from this book on projects they could make in an art class. This book could also be used to start a science discussion on how everything in life is connected and effcts ech other.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a cool wordless book. For all ages. Nothing is as it seems....(cue Twilight Zone music.)

[Sherri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I plan on using this amazing wordless book with my 7th graders to review sequencing.

[Megan Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfection.

[Flávia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indescritível

[Abdel Aziz Amer · Rating 4 out of 5]

فكرة عبقرية لمجموعة رسومات متتابعة بطريقة الزووم .. كل صورة تعطي نظرة أكثر شمولاً .. تحرض على الإهتمام بالتفاصيل.