I was instantly intrigued when illustrator Dan Santat described on social media how he developed the display type for Drawn Together, writing, “It originates from the original Thai alphabet. Then I integrated Western alphabet components into the design to show a melding of cultures. Lastly, for design reasons, I modified certain characters for legibility.” This typographic, cultural melding is a first indication of Santat’s achievement of “excellence of pictorial interpretation of story, theme, or concept” as it offers an immediate, visual representation of the connection forged by the story’s English-speaking boy and his Thai-speaking grandfather when they transcend language barriers through collaborative art-making. The lettering’s striking appearance on the jacket also arrests attention on Lê’s title itself, prompting consideration of its dual meanings: the characters draw together and in doing so are emotionally drawn together. Clever, right? But this picture book’s brilliance resides in how its interdependent verbal and visual layers of meaning can draw readers together, too. Of course, many picture books do this; but Lê and Santat’s overt theme of connection through art-making underscores how their collaboration invites readers to connect with each other through art meaning-making.

In the book proper, the restraint of Lê’s spare writing surpasses the cleverness evidenced by the title to allow Santat’s full creative powers to engage with the story. In fact, the first spread is a text-free depiction of the boy entering his grandfather’s home (after his mother drops him off, dejected, on front-matter pages). The next page is also textless as it provides a close, aerial view of grandson and grandfather sitting down to foods signifying their cultural differences. Text finally arrives in speech balloons delivered on mid-page, meaningfully bifurcated panels on the recto; but since the boy’s dialog on the right is in English, and the grandfather’s on the left is in Thai, their utterances fail to connect them. And, the next spread continues their language barrier: the boy sits, bored, before a Thai-language TV show, and then the grandfather’s grave face registers concern after a second Thai/English non-exchange.

The subsequent wordless spread, still paneled, reveals changes in the grandfather’s countenance as he observes the boy drawing a self-portrait as a wizard. He’s curious, then delighted. When text returns on the next spread, it’s first-person, retrospective narration, not dialog: “Right when I gave up talking,” it reads, “my grandfather surprised me by revealing a world beyond words.” Here, the boy’s curiosity dominates the panels as he looks, wide-eyed, at the black sketchbook his grandfather sets beside an inkpot and brushes. The bottom of the spread is now panel-free, with a thick, black line (ostensibly made by the grandfather) leading from the verso, across the gutter, and to the brush breaking the recto’s lower corner. This moment showcases Santat’s achievement in “delineation of plot, theme, characters, setting, mood [and] information through the pictures;” for just like Sendak’s scene when “the walls be[come] the world all around,” the use of the white of the page as a domain unto itself indicates narrative movement into a new, fantastic realm.

Furthermore, the graphic detail of the grandfather’s inky brushstroke acts as a visual page-turner. And, the payoff? It’s terrific. Panels disappear as text reads, “we see each other for the first time.” A double-page spread juxtaposition of characters and techniques confirms Santat’s “excellence of execution in the artistic technique employed.” The colorful boy-wizard dominates the verso, wielding a star-tipped wand as he strikes a dynamic pose, while on the recto, a finely detailed line drawing shows a self-portrait of grandfather-as-warrior in Thai ceremonial garb, brandishing a brush as large as himself. Although positioned on facing pages, they gaze toward each other, and the grandfather-warrior’s brush sweeps another thick, black, inky line across the verso, under his grandson, and into the gutter, connecting them.

Ensuing pages meld the pair’s distinct styles, with the boy’s colorful, marker palette depicting a monkey and rounded rock-like forms, while the grandfather’s finely detailed line-work portrays swirling waves and a fish that’s dragon-like in its massive, scaly ferocity. Then, a dragon rendered in both techniques arrives as a visual metaphor for “that old distance” that “comes ROARING BACK” to again separate them. Santat’s return to panels on the next verso underscores renewed alienation; but, a full-bleed illustration on the facing recto shows the boy raising the warrior-grandfather’s brush against the dragon, heralding newfound determination and confidence. “This time I’m not afraid,” reads Lê’s text. Collaborative art-making has enabled grandson and grandfather to “make their way across” language and cultural barriers, slaying the dragon of distance. The transformative power of this “SPEECHLESS” connection emerges at book’s end when the boy takes his grandfather’s brush, and the grandfather, the boy’s marker. The implication is that although they’ve connected through their own, distinct ways, they’ve drawn each other into new growth, too.

The result of this brilliant melding of alphabets, words, pictures, and design is both a gorgeous evocation of the characters’ specific, evolving connection through art-making, and an invitation for readers to connect with each other through the art of the book—perhaps especially though inquiry provoked by the ambiguous modality of the scenes at the heart of the story.

What’s really happening in this “world beyond words”?

Is it real? Are those spreads with the fish, the monkey, and the dragon the pictures the pair have “drawn together”?

Did they really make those pictures? Did the author really do this with his grandfather? The illustrator with his?

Or, is it pretend? In other words, do these pictures comprise an imaginary scenario dreamed up by the narrator boy in which he and his grandfather act out a metaphorical negotiation of their relationship?

Or, is this a fantastical world that they, as wizard and warrior, occupy in the story to negotiate the same?

That this book can inspire such inquiry reveals its laser-sharp focus “in recognition of a child audience” as it embraces the common childhood preoccupation with the blurry lines drawn between real and pretend, imagined and experienced, perceived and felt. Then, remove the jacket and discover a paratextual, metafictive twist that will leave readers engaged with such analysis momentarily “speechless” when they see that the case cover looks just like the grandfather’s black sketchbook.

“It is real!” said my three-year-old when I read this book with him. “This is the grandpa’s drawing book!”

Just as Lê’s text leaves room for Santat’s art to extend the story visually, the iconotext (or, the merging of the visual and the verbal) gives readers space to grapple with the potential meaning(s) of the climactic scenes of the story and their relationship to the book as a whole. And it’s through that grappling that great picture books like this one hold not just stories and art, but memories of readings and the insights, discoveries, and connections they provoke. Whether or not this brilliant picture book about nurturing and sustaining familial bonds through art wins 2019 Caldecott recognition, I’m certain it will draw readers together for years to come.