Starred Review "What a beautiful day! The air is so clear / The sky so blue / Thomas is on vacation with his parents. Hooray!" The illustrations show the family at the beach, where the parents nap while Thomas goes for a walk and finds a little book called The Book in the Book in the Book. He begins reading, "What a beautiful day! The air is so clear . . ." The story unfolds, word-for-word the same, but the pictures reveal a new setting, a snowy ski-resort area where Thomas wanders off and finds an even smaller book that opens with the same words, though its illustrations now place the vacationing family on a different planet. The second booklet is bound into the first one, and the third into the second. Each successive volume is smaller than the previous one, while the closing pages return to the original book's size as well as its setting. First published in France, this intriguing picture book features a short, pleasing text illustrated with attractive digital images. Children will enjoy the clever concept, which seems headed toward infinity until the story's ending brings the echoing narratives together in a single, satisfying conclusion. A simple idea artfully transformed into a memorable picture book.

When Thomas can't find his parents on the beach, he discovers a book--in which he's in another vacation setting and finds another book. Each book, bound inside the other, has a smaller trim size and a text that repeats exactly as colorful, intriguingly textured illustrations show Thomas next exploring a ski slope and then outer space. This French import's conceit, while clever, has limited reread appeal.

Bailly's illustrations and some unusual formatting take a seemingly ordinary outing in surprising directions in this import from France.Thomas enjoys a vacation trip with his parents beneath a sunny blue sky to an uncrowded beach in the serigraphic-style pictures—until, becoming a bit bored, he wanders off. When the sun begins to go down he anxiously searches for his parents but finds only a book on the ground. That book, smaller in trim size and mounted on the next page, contains the same narrative, word for word…but the locale has shifted to snowy ski slopes and woods. There's another, yet smaller, book at the end of that version with, again, the same text but a radically different setting: the moon (presumably, as the Earth is visible overhead in one view). Such tweaking of readers' expectations is, as always, a fun game, but here the conceit works far better in the first two go-rounds than the third, as it's hard to square the observation that "The air is so clear / The sky so blue" with all the helmeted, vacuum-suited figures strolling over the rocky moonscape, and the book at the end is not "on the ground" as described but actually floating in some sort of large tunnel. In any event, notwithstanding a false promise on the rear cover of at least a fourth iteration, all ends happily as the errant lad's parents reappear with the next page turn (and the next, and the next) to take him home. Thomas and most of the other humans present as white, but there are a few apparent people of color in crowd scenes.Poor execution sinks a clever concept. (Picture book. 6-8)