UP DOWN INSIDE OUT

A cast of eccentric humans and animals enacts 18 aphorisms in this interactive title.

Employing red and blue—and the range of tones that layering yields—Yoon has created a series of prints that will both amuse and give pause. On verso, a red-hot wall foregrounds “A watched pot [that] never boils” while four chefs on the recto, surrounding an enormous box of realistic-looking pasta, stare impatiently. (Skin color varies from literal white or black to speckled blue or crimson.) Flaps, die cuts, and a gatefold create anticipation and delight as surprises are unveiled in the ever shifting, surreal world. “You are what you eat” reveals a child’s head transformed into a gigantic broccoli floret. The heat of the reds and the busyness of abundant textures and patterns are mitigated by creamy white backgrounds or deep, moody blues, as when a man in the night opens his black trench coat to reveal his store of stolen watches, illustrating “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” Yoon dishes up absurdity in the form of an elegantly dressed pig, a sense of danger with a rabbit-hunting wolf, and opportunities for comparison and reflection, as, for example, when the same conjoined figures are paired with the (unfortunate) choice “Liars and gossips are siamese [sic] twins,” and, later, “Two heads are better than one.”

This tour de force of concept and design will engage the minds and hands of a wide swath of ages.