The House with 100 Stories

This vertically formatted counting story opens as Tochi, an astronomy-loving kid with pale skin and a Tintin-like quiff, receives a mysterious invitation from the sky to visit the top floor of a 100-story tower. As "up, up, up Tochi climbed" through each of the edifice's rooms, he learns that each block of 10 stories serves as a multilevel home for a different anthropomorphized animal community. The creatures welcome Tochi's polite arrival, piquing his curiosity about "what's next?" After traversing the floors via fanciful sets of stairs, ladders, and, in one case, a series of chutes, Tochi's top-floor host is finally revealed to be the Spider Prince, who presides over a high-altitude observatory that proves a perfect setting for two stargazers to forge a friendship and indulge their love of planets and stars. The premise gives artist Iwai plenty of opportunities to tickle readers' fancy and encourage repeated viewings: the enumerated floors are shown as cutaway-style rooms, each spotlighting details and vignettes that illuminate each species' particular domestic lives and interior design tastes. Readers should get a good giggle from how the snakes' house is built for slithering and how the lightly eerie bat house has everything upside down--including the toilet and bathtub. Ages 4-8. (Nov.)

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"This Japanese import employs a unique vertical format that will surprise and delight young readers, and the unusual configuration gives a real sense of Tochi's ascension, allowing for terrific spreads of uninterrupted 10-story cross sections. Every humorous page bursts with wonderfully specific details that beg for repeat examinations. An incredibly creative chronicle well worth the climb."—Booklist

"The premise gives artist Iwai plenty of opportunities to tickle readers' fancy and encourage repeated viewings: the enumerated floors are shown as cutaway-style rooms, each spotlighting details and vignettes that illuminate each species' particular domestic lives and interior design tastes. Readers should get a good giggle from how the snakes' house is built for slithering and how the lightly eerie bat house has everything upside down—including the toilet and bathtub."—Publishers Weekly

"A vertical journey through a well-imagined, wonder-filled world."—Kirkus Reviews