“I do love this book.” —"The New Yorker," Book Bench section

“Those of us for whom books are a faith in themselves — who find the notion that pixels, however ordered, could be any kind of substitute for the experience of reading in a chair with the strange thing spread open on our lap — will love this book. Though it will surely draw a laugh from kids, it will give even more pleasure to parents who have been trying to make loudly the point that Smith’s book makes softly: that the virtues of a book are independent of any bells, whistles or animation it might be made to contain.   . .  . For in trying to make the case for books to our kids, exactly the case we want to make is not that they can compete with the virtues of computer or screens, but that they do something else: that they allow for a soulfulness the screens, with their jumpy impersonality, cannot duplicate . . . The moral of Smith’s book is the right one: not

Lane Smith has written and illustrated a bunch of stuff, including "It's a Book"; "John, Paul, George & Ben" and "Madam President." His titles with Jon Scieszka have included the Caldecott Honor-winner "The Stinky Cheese Man"; "The True Story" "of the 3 Little Pigs"; "Math Curse"; and "Science Verse." Lane's other high profile titles include "Hooray for Diffendoofer Day"! by Dr. Seuss and Jack Prelutsky; "The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip" by George Saunders; "Big Plans" by Bob Shea; and "James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl. In 1996 Lane served as Conceptual Designer on the Disney film version of "James and the Giant Peach." Lane also wrote and illustrated the retro, cult favorites, "The Happy Hocky Family" and "The Happy Hocky Family Moves to the Country." Like the Hocky family, he and book designer Molly Leach live in a little town in the country.