Sean C. Jackson

FROM HERE TO THERE: A BOOK OF MAZES TO WANDER AND EXPLORE by Sean C. Jackson is a stunning book that combines beautiful art with engaging puzzles.

This engaging book provides an excellent introduction to art, architecture, and 3-D puzzles along with dozens of engaging mazes to complete. The author's introduction includes background information about mazes in general and also the 3-dimensional approach taken by the author/illustrator. The variety of mazes and the illustrator's use of color add to the book's appeal.

Each maze contains a starting point, ending point, and name. While most of the mazes are single pages, a few are two-page spreads. The combination of rural and urban settings along with natural and human-made landscapes make the book particularly appealing.

Librarians will find this book to be a popular addition to the nonfiction collection. Young people will enjoy how the mazes seem to define gravity. When sharing the book with children show images of M.C. Escher and discuss this technique.

ARC courtesy of the publisher.… (más)

At first glance the art and the mazes seem surprisingly simple, the art style is a bit cartoony and simple and blocky at times, the colors are a bit muted and when I first skimmed through the mazes mostly looked like they were all the same. However on closer look, the mazes are more involved than they first appeared and are quite challenging at times. And while the art style varies little from maze to maze, they do each have their own distinct feel and look, like their own little worlds.
The physical quality of the book is high, which is both good and bad. The nicer paper made it more of a pleasure to handle but I have to admit it felt wrong to mark up the pages as I tried to find my way around the maze. Which in turn inspired me to try tracing more of them with my finger instead of a pencil, which I found changed the way I engaged with the maze, it became more of an experience vs. a puzzle to be solved quickly and I was more willing to back track and start over, which I feel helped give it all a more meditative feel.
My only serious complaint would be that I would have liked to see more variation on color and texture in the artwork, to give the images a stronger sense of individuality and interest.
Overall fun and challenging but not stress inducing, which makes for a relaxing experience.… (más)