This Is a Door by National Book Award and Newbery Honor winner Daniel Nayeri (The Teacher of Nomad Land; The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams) is a clever reimagining of the monomyth, or, as described in Nayeri's author's note, "the story of a hero who goes out on a perilous journey, experiences trials, and returns home changed." Here, the hero is a boy who quests with his two friends, a mouse and a dog, each hoping to find their purpose. Nayeri uses an ingenious visual format that offers a reading experience unlike any other, in which text climbs the page, spirals, forms shapes, and expands and contracts.
In the "city on the mountaintop of a far-off and long-lost country" lives 12-year-old Nothing the Younger, or Ing for short. Ing is "nothing much," just a "dull... wiggly creature" with no mother (she died in childbirth) or father (he left after Ing was born). Ing has no job beyond fetching things for people whose names are their "calling," such as Tinker, who tinkered, or the "Wander Prince," who "wandered around adventuring." But Ing does have three loyal friends: Nana, a "beggared widow with a lame foot" who is the closest thing Ing has to a mother; Pöppy, a silly dog who just wants happiness for everyone; and his newest friend, mOmO, a wise, cunning mouse.
Ing believes everyone has a purpose, and he wants nothing more than to discover his. But Nana tells him that to learn his individual purpose, Ing must first find his father so he can ask what his real name was supposed to have been. She encourages Ing to "go out in the world and find your own way," then gives each of the friends an object to help them on their journey: a walking stick for Ing, a scarf for mOmO, and a copper bell for Pöppy. In exchange, they promise that when all three discover their best purpose they'll return and tell Nana all about it.
On their long and adventurous trek, the trio navigate the Land of the Dead, where they help a ghost cross over; assist the Wander Prince in his fight against the terrifying wimmelworm, a crawling dragon who spits fireballs and collects "souls and heartmeats"; and discover the fates of Ing's mother and father. Along the way, Ing almost becomes an apprentice to the lamplighter, who "lights the lamps... that shine the moon into the sky," and a squire to the prince. It is only upon his return home, however, that Ing realizes that his true purpose has been inside him the whole time. With the help of his friends and some life experience, he is finally able to manifest it.
Nayeri follows the story template of the hero's journey and applies the structure to the physical layout of the book by taking 12 elements from the hero's quest and making them the chapter titles. Nayeri expertly combines this metafictional device with playful typography in this illustrated story without illustrations, in which his words do double duty as text and image. In the opening spread, he places the text "A boy named Nothing woke up on the floor" at the bottom of the page. On the next page, "He sat up" is stacked one word on top of another and, on the following page, "high up in the rafters of the stables was a little mouse who had whimpered all night," is placed at the top. This is only one of the myriad ways Nayeri plays with words. Sometimes he experiments within a sentence or expresses the meaning of a word with its letters. To show falling, for example, he lets the letters tumble down the page, and to depict shrubs he staggers the letters. Other times, he uses concrete poetry to create pictures with the text--for example, a lighthouse, a dog, and a broken heart. Nayeri also uses font size and weight to express volume, making the words look the way they should sound: "Boom! Boom! Boom!" fills the majority of the page in bolded capital letters as each word gets bigger and bigger, while whispered sentences appear smaller.
Nayeri's prose can be delightfully musical, packed with internal rhymes and alliteration reminiscent of Lin-Manuel Miranda's rapping style: "Here is a quest to address the distress of a queen whose chests of dresses need refilling," or King Cyrus's request that "every hero here who can hear this, the fearless and peerless best of us (and the careless among the rest of us)" answer his call to adventure. But it can also be simple and straightforward: "The silence grew louder." Both techniques are affective, engaging, and perfect for silent reading as well as read-alouds that will turn the tale into a performance.
This Is a Door is much more than a fantastic study in typography; it explores grief with unexpected depth. Nayeri acknowledges the feelings of overwhelm and numbness that come with loss while leaving space for the hope that follows. The author handles these emotional beats with remarkable nuance. After a tragic event, a blank spread follows, then the words "This is the sound of silence," and then... nothing. It's a simple method but an incredibly powerful one, allowing the absence of words to carry the story's significant weight. This wondrous, inventive, and absorbing novel is likely to have broad appeal with young readers. Lovers of Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends and David Bowles's They Call Me Güero will surely enjoy the concrete poetry and exciting design elements, while fans of Katherine Rundell's Impossible Creatures series or Erin Entrada Kelly's adventurous bildungsroman novels may love the thrill and inspiration of Nothing's hero's journey. --Lana Barnes
Ankur Thakkar is a writer and multimedia artist with work that's appeared in [PANK] and TriQuarterly. His debut novel, Blow Yourself Up, is a literary reckoning with the creator economy and a moving portrayal of love across cities and screens. Find out which classic he considers to be "an Internet novel written almost 200 years ago" and which epic's "emo warrior-prince" inspired his story's main character.
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