by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 09, 2010

It's Stephen T. Johnson's most beautiful book. He'd already won a Caldecott Honor for "Alphabet City," and he revisited the concept four years later in "City By Numbers." Johnson drew realistic paintings in both books, concealing either letters or numbers in every picture. But he abandoned even that formality in "As The City Sleeps" - and simply supplies readers with a series of a very beautiful paintings.

There's no story - that's the book's biggest mystery. But the first clue is the quote Johnson uses to open the book. "Night, the beloved..." it begins, "when words fade and things come alive." One illustration even shows "A Peculiar Painting," with a subtitle explaining that its frame "could not contain its inhabitants." (And sure enough, in the light of the museum, there's tiny monkeys crawling out onto the painting's frame!) But they'll never be seen again, since the book just switches from one scene to another.

The book's jacket calls it a journey to where "reality and illusion intersect,"  and Johnson isn't giving up many more hints. Instead, each painting is accompanied by a title and subtitle - but they're deliberately vague and mysterious. "Primal Return," reads the first painting's title. "They escaped into the night." But it seems like it's only a moonlit alley, overlooked by empty fire escapes - until you notice the blurry images of a tiny fleeing dinosaur!

One painting simply shows a dark building behind bare tree branches with a dim light in its highest room. "Forsaken," reads the title, though the subtitle suggests an ongoing mystery. ("Every night the light appeared...") And a painting of a cab is titled "Driverless."  (Its subtitle? "The cab meandered through old haunts...") That illustration is remarkable, as the bright-yellow cab clashes with the brooding dark of the city around it. It's like he's channeling Edward Hopper - and the artistry adds to the unspoken mystery.

Two pages later, there's a page titled "Ghost Riders" - and its illustration shows the view through a window. There's a hazy railroad car, and its occupants  look like a faded-yellow photograph. Some are wearing old-fashioned straw hats, and the subtitle suggests a larger story. "Last seen in 1936, they vanished without a trace." But turn the page, and you're off to yet another beautiful scene - this time, the fog rising over an ancient cathedral.

Searching for answers? There aren't any. Just the mysteries that haunt the night...

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