A Gizmodo Best Book, award-winning illustrator Frank Viva’s picture book Young Frank, Architect is the story of an aspiring architect whose visit to New York City’s MoMA inspires his creativity in unexpected ways.
Young Frank is an aspiring architect. He lives with his grandfather, Old Frank, who is also an architect, and his spotted dog, Eddie. Using anything he finds—macaroni, pillows, toilet paper, shoes—Young Frank likes to make buildings that twist, chairs with zigzag legs, and even entire cities. But Old Frank disapproves, saying architects only create buildings.
One day they go to The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. There, they see work by two famous architects named Frank: Frank Gehry’s cardboard wiggly chair and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City project, among other things. Old Frank sees that architects can do more than he thought they could. Together, Old Frank and Young Frank go home and create structures of every shape and size, “tall ones, squat ones, tubular ones, and just plain weird ones,” using whatever they can get their hands on, even cookies! At the end of the day, Young Frank feels a little older, and Old Frank feels a little younger—and a little wiser.
“Spontaneous play any budding architect can appreciate.” —Publishers Weekly
“This exquisitely designed book would be an enticing prelude to a visit with a young child as well as an invitation to all readers to let their imaginations run wild.” —Kirkus Reviews
