Hang Glider and Mud Mask

by Brian McMullen, Jason Jagel

Overview

One lives high in the sky. The other lives deep underground. Follow Hang Glider and Mud Mask as they fly down and climb up to meet each other halfway—on the surface of the earth and in the center of the book. Hang Glider & Mud Mask is uniquely constructed with two front covers, two spines, and a Z-shaped binding that links the two sides of the story. Will you begin from the Hang Glider side, or flip the book around and start from the Mud Mask side? It’s your choice. (And since one half’s finale becomes the other half’s front cover, it’s hard to stop and put the book down.)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781936365838
Publisher:	McSweeney's Publishing
Publication date:	11/15/2012
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 6.70(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Brian McMullen lives in San Francisco with his wife and two sons. He edits and designs the McSweeney's McMullens children's book series for McSweeney's.

Jason Jägel lives in San Francisco with his wife and two daughters. His work has been exhibited internationally for almost twenty years. This is McMullen and Jägel's first book for children.

Editorial Reviews

Is it two stories in one? Or one story that doesn’t end? McMullen (editor of the McMullens imprint) and artist Jägel, in their first work for children, have created a wholly original Möbius strip of a book with two front covers (each opens at left) whose stories meet in the middle, finding their resolutions with the opposing cover. In the Mud Mask story line, a girl in scuffed-up pants and a bandanna (who is also in the middle of a facial) climbs up via stairs, ladder, and more to catch “the flying legs” that can be seen peeking out from a triangular yellow hang glider on the opposite cover; the second story follows a boy’s downward flight into the arms of the girl. With imagery and palette as unusual as the format, it’s an odd—and oddly successful—journey. Ages 4–8. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"This is awesome."
—Daniel Handler

"Beautiful."
—Daniel Clowes

"Another gem from McSweeney's McMullens.... I love the idea of a children's book hero with cucumber slices for eyes."
—50 Watts

"Wholly original... With imagery and palette as unusual as the format, it's an odd—and oddly successful—journey."
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"Accomplishes the loftiest goal a picture book with few words can: It greatly enriches the experience of gathering together as a family."
—SF Weekly

"Readers can start from either story and find themselves floating through luminous images in this dreamlike adventure. Dramatic and engaging."
—The Public Library of Cincinnati

"a never-ending book which your children might insist you read many, many times over."—Aiden Moffat's, The Guardian

"To reach the arms I grabbed my wing and found the cliff and ran and leapt. . . .
To reach the legs I turned the key and climbed the stairs to the ladder . . ."
— from the book

From the Publisher

A two-sided book with no beginning and no end can either lead to great delight or frustration depending upon the reader's point of view. If the reader begins on the page following the two feet on the cover, we see a boy grasping a triangle above a city. If we begin on the page following a graphic drawing of a girl with cucumber-slice eyes, we see a girl huddled under a blanket under suburban trees. Is it a "country girl meets city boy" story? Is it a trendy, damaged, rich girl saves underprivileged boy story? Is it the story of one who rises up to catch one who falls? Younger readers may be confused and lose interest while older readers, including adults, may find a variety of hidden meanings in this cleverly illustrated and unusually bound picture book. Reviewer: Debra Lampert-Rudman

Children's Literature - Debra Lampert-Rudman

Geometric shapes, matte colors and agitated line create energy and movement in this surreal kind-of love story that is possibly not aimed at children at all. The small, square volume is bound dos-à-dos, two stories that meet and climax in the middle, with two front covers. Mud Mask is a girl wearing, well, a mud mask and cucumber slices over her eyes in a classic spa image. "To reach the legs" she sees floating above, she leaves her underground place via stairs, ladder and rope until she emerges from a hole. "To reach the arms" he sees held out to him, Hang Glider leaps from the cliff of his building, flying down on a glider that changes color--blue, yellow, green, gold--and lands in Mud Mask's arms. One of her hands is bandaged in this meeting, though not in the one from her perspective. This might be a metaphor of love and salvation or a dream sequence the creators could not resist. Readers can start from either beginning and end up at the same rescue. Younger readers may be befuddled, or they may take the few words and the dramatic shape of the images and create their own landscape of story. Unusual not so much in its binding (there have been others) as in its willful but engaging opacity. (Picture book. 7-12)

Kirkus Reviews