Black and White (picture book)

Black and White

Author	David Macaulay
Illustrator	David Macaulay
Genre	children's book
Publisher	Houghton Mifflin
Publication date	March 1990
Publication place	United States
ISBN	978-0-395-52151-9
OCLC	246622739
LC Class	PZ7.M1197 Bl 1990

Black and White is a 1990 postmodern children's picture book by David Macaulay. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, it received mixed reviews upon its release, but it was the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1991. The book tells four overlapping stories, each drawn with a distinct visual style. The four stories are "Seeing Things", about a boy on a train trip by himself, "Problem Parents", about siblings whose parents behave differently one night, "A Waiting Game", about people waiting for a train, and "Udder Chaos", about cows who escape and then return to their field.

Macaulay had the idea of creating a book about journeys in the 1980s and combined several previously unrelated sketches in order to form the four stories in the book. Owing to its metafictional structure, the book is considered a main example of a postmodern picture book. The book is designed to be interpreted in a number of different ways and can be frustrating for readers who wish to have a simple narrative they can absorb without thinking too much about. The text and pictures of the book both complement each other and provide a sense of tension as they are sometimes in opposition to each other. Black and White is credited with helping to advance the form of a picture book and is seen as a direct or indirect inspiration for several other picture books.