"Gerstein's characteristic pen-and-paint-on-vellum technique creates a vivid depth, accentuated by use of shadows, that makes the reader feel as if they could literally drop into the scene." --"Horn Book""""Humorous." --Starred, "School Library Journal""More seasoned readers will be inspired to rethink what a book is (pun intended), how it works, and their own part in bringing it to life. This is "A Book" to savor." --"Shelf Awareness""This charming story follows a young girl and her family who live in a book, though she doesn't know what kind of story her book is." --Starred, "Booklist""""Readers will particularly giggle at the characters importuning the young protagonist to join their various genres."--"Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books""Clever." --"Kirkus Reviews""""One of the more innovative picture books I've read in quite a while." --"Eclectica""Fresh, clever, surprising, and great fun." --Kidslit.menashsalibrary.org"A thoroughly fascinating adventure about a family who lives inside a book." "--The Cleveland Plain Dealer"

Mordicai Gerstein is the author and illustrator of "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers," winner of the Caldecott Medal, and has had four books named "New York Times" Best Illustrated Books of the Year. Gerstein was born in Los Angeles in 1935. He remembers being inspired as a child by images of fine art, which his mother cut out of "Life" magazine, and by children's books from the library: "I looked at Rembrandt and Superman, Matisse and Bugs Bunny, and began to make my own pictures." He attended Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, and then got a job in an animated cartoon studio that sent him to New York, where he designed characters and thought up ideas for TV commercials. When a writer named Elizabeth Levy asked him to illustrate a humorous mystery story about two girls and a dog, his book career began, and soon he moved on to writing as well as illustrating. "I'm still surprised to be an author," he says. "I wonder what I'll write next?" Gerstein lives in Westhampton, Massachusetts.