There is a book sitting on our coffee table that has been there for years. It’s a magical little story I started reading to The Greatest Kid On The Planet when he was six years old, and it’s one we’ll never outgrow. We’ve read it so many times that the jacket is worn and weathered, and the spine has become tired from the constant turning of its pages. It’s a whimsical tale called The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.
This delightful story was first released in 2011 as an animated short film directed by William Joyce. The film was so well received that it won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, and Apple released an Ipad app which they based on the film.
A year later, William Joyce, with help from illustrator Joe Bluhm, brought his story to life once more within the pages of a charming and colorful book. I happened upon this wonderful treasure long before I viewed the film, and I was enchanted by it from the first. The Greatest Kid and I have enjoyed it over and over ever since.
Mr. Morris Lessmore spends his days surrounded by books, reading their stories and writing his own. Each day, he sits on his porch and fills the pages of his book with the story of his life, writing “his joys and sorrows, of all that he know[s] and everything he hope[s] for.”
Then one day, a terrible storm sweeps through, scattering everything about, including all of Morris’s words and all of his books, leaving his world in disarray and coloring everything a lonely shade of grey.
