Shootout at the Crayola Corral: Bad Day at Riverbend by Chris Van Allsburg

The amazingly inventive Chris Van Allsburg has proven over and over his ability to play with our minds, cavorting through changing points of view and visual as well as verbal humor to surprise and delight the reader. In this case his original concept shakes the worldview of the characters in the book and ultimately toys with that of his readers as well.

As we open Bad Day at Riverbend, we see an Old West town portrayed in bold black line drawings on a stark white background. With perspective, but no shading to round out the objects in this story, we see that stereotypical "flat" character, the stalwart sheriff, puzzled at a sudden flash of colored light in the western sky. Immediately he spots a stagecoach whose team of four horses are marked with streaks of a shiny, greasy red slime. A search outside town locates the coach driver, also bearing the dreadful marks on his face and body. Sheriff Ned rounds up a posse to ride out courageously to protect the cowering townsfolk.

Following the flashes of light in the sky, the brave men ride into a terrain streaked and wrecked with the fearful flashes of greasy color. A tall, skinny gunman, seemingly an alien formed entirely of the waxy substance, appears in the distance. As the courageous posse, six shooters drawn, advances on the fateful figure, a brilliant blaze of light freezes them flat--on the page, we see, of a child's coloring book.

In the concluding full-page spreads a little cowgirl wielding a crayon is pictured finishing off her cowboy coloring book in a satisfying blaze of Crayola!

Children will enjoy the final "AH-HA!" moment with gasps and giggles of delight as the frame of reference suddenly shifts from one storybook world to another storybook world! The adult reading to the child, of course, can't help but wonder what the next frame of reference would be. Could someone be looking at us looking at the child who sees and changes the world within her coloring book?

Wonder, indeed.