A Door Is to Open
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected May 12, 2026
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- $10.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Welcome through the doorway of this picture book . . . about doors! From a Caldecott Honor author and a New York Times Best Illustrated artist comes a celebration of entrances, thresholds and portals — and all the endless possibilities they can lead to!
Some doors may give you a nervous, fizzy feeling . . . and also make you glad you came.
There are so many kinds of doors: swinging doors and sliding doors, screen doors for feeling the night air, revolving doors for going around and around. Doors that open into . . . anything you can imagine! A birthday party, a shipwreck on the salty sea floor, a fairy's tiny home, a slide into a room full of pillows! Or even the fantastical future ahead. Where will the doorway of this picture book lead? The only way to find out is to turn the page and go through . . .
In a playful ode to Ruth Krauss's A Hole Is to Dig and Remy Charlip's essay A Page Is a Door, this imagination-sparking picture book from an award-winning duo will be welcomed by anyone who is entering a new phase of life — and invites readers of all ages to embrace the marvelous possibilities that wait for them behind every new door.
Includes a beautiful foldout page and textured spine.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a whimsical picture book study that's positioned as an homage to Ruth Krauss's A Hole Is to Dig and Remy Charlip's essay "A Page Is a Door," prior collaborators Maclear and Morstad (It Began with a Page) embrace doors as portals to play and possibility. Concise narration establishes doors' varied forms and functions, while Charlip- and Sendak-tinged art buoyantly conveys the discovery and sociability that frequently begin at a threshold. In one scene, a child raps at a door, a bouquet behind their back ("A door is to knock on"); in another, a figure races around a pink spinning variety ("A revolving door is for going around/ and around/ and around"). As prose builds empathically ("Some doors may give you a nervous, fizzy feeling"), the focus shifts to portals offering access points to alternative perspectives, with dainty drawings presenting animalian dwellings, a shipwreck, and an inviting fairy home. Employing a mix of pencil, marker, and watercolor techniques across alternating b&w and full-color art, tidy drawings depict figures of varied skin tones and abilities alongside entrances of all kinds. As the storytelling shifts to the personal ("Someday you might have the choice of several doors to enter"), musing lines encourage readers to let curiosity propel them. In dialogue with some children's literature greats, the creators meaningfully highlight doors as metaphors for openness. Ages 3–7. Author's agent: Jackie Kaiser, Westwood Creative Artists. Illustrator's agent: Emily van Beek, Folio Jr./Folio Literary.
