Christopher Myers returns with 'Night Ride', a children's book featuring stained-glass art

The American writer and interdisciplinary artist was in Bengaluru recently to attend a children's literature festival

Christopher Myers's latest book, Night Ride (Kokila/ Penguin), marks a historic first for children's publishing because it brings the medium of stained glass into the picture-book format. Myers sketched all the visuals for the book and collaborated with a family of glass artisans in Mexico, who translated his designs into stained-glass panels. He then illuminated and photographed the panels in his studio. The resulting photographs went on to form the book. The project introduces an entirely new art form to the picture-book genre, expanding the many possibilities of how stories can be told visually.

An American writer, interdisciplinary artist, playwright, and opera scenographer, Myers was in Bengaluru recently to attend the Neev Literature Festival. He is a Caldecott Honor artist and winner of the 2015 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Firebird (2014), a picture book authored by ballet star Misty Copeland.

Myers finds picture books to be multifaceted and ideologically rich. "Young people are asking the big questions of life," he says. "They are in search of real, direct answers. As we get older, we get seduced by the easier answers but with young people, you have to address them directly and I love that opportunity. I also like the communal nature of picture books and how they are meant to be read aloud or read together."

A radical form

Night Ride is a wordless picture book about five children riding bikes through New York City at night, rushing past fountains, monuments, awnings and bridges. They carry their bikes down staircases, holding them with both hands. In one striking scene, Myers turns the entire composition horizontally, and we see the five riders face-on, like figures arranged in a church window. Buildings rise on either side of them and the page fold falls right at the centre of this burst of activity.

As readers, we can make sense of the image without physically turning the book, though rotating it reveals an entirely new perspective. Wordless picture books invite readers to linger over scenes, discuss what they see and interrogate what might be unfolding on the page. What are the children thinking about? Who are the other children they seem to be talking to? They appear to be deeply in love with their city. But which part of it offers them the greatest sense of freedom?

Myers describes the process of bringing Night Ride to life as a balance between art and engineering. He began by sketching scenes from the book in pencil before rendering them in black ink, and scanning the drawings to create a colour map. An expert team of stained-glass makers from Guadalajara, Mexico, then rendered the art on stained glass before fitting it into custom-built frames measuring 6x4 feet. These were photographed by Myers to create the book.

The result is a transformation of the city into a series of cathedral windows, alive with light. The faces in the book are constructed using hard-edged panes of both light and dark colours, with one cheek lit and the other cast in shadow. This contrast gives the faces a carved, cubist, sculpture-like quality, lending them a weight rarely encountered in children's books. "I make stained glass for my fine arts practice, so I really wanted to give this to the community of young people," says Myers. "I was also interested in where we reserve beauty. Where do we allow beauty to exist? I want young people to see that beauty is in their corner shops, in water spraying from a fire hydrant, and in everyday spaces."

Evolving canvas

Much like his work as a visual artist, Myers's previous books have challenged the conventions of the picture-book format in different ways. For instance, Wings (2000) tells the story of Ikarus Jackson, a boy with beautiful white wings who can fly but is ostracised by his classmates for being different. H.O.R.S.E. (2012) follows two children who meet on a basketball court and challenge each other to a playful game where they copy each other's successful shots. Their contest soon escalates from trick shots around the world to impossible feats on Saturn's rings. The verbal duel between the players unfolds as a humorous rap battle, built around a call-and-response format that Myers says he enjoys immensely. His next book is about quilts, and he is also working with indigo dyers to explore the rich history of the dye.

"People who look at fine arts or opera are a narrow swathe of people," he says. "Picture books, though, have a diversity in their audience. Almost everyone picks up a children's book or has read one and no one feels excluded. I want my work to become a waystation between books for children at large and the fine arts world."