Gracey Zhang illustrates with sensitivity and subtlety Rebecca Stead's sensitive and subtle picture-book text, telling the story of a father and child's first day in a new apartment. Why have they had to move? Has it always been just the two of them? Stead leaves plenty of room for interpretation, although, as Adrienne notes in her Horn Book review, "Heartache is evident in the effort both parties are making and in the tentative expressions on the child’s face while navigating change." Admirably, Zhang's art doesn't provide any definitive answers, respecting the ambiguity of the text. 

The scene is a third-floor apartment in an urban neighborhood and, because we are seeing things through the child's eyes, at first almost completely rendered in black and white. The child narrator (nongendered by Zhang — again fitting with the openness-of-interpretation of the story) profoundly misses the pair's old apartment, their home. The story begins when Daddy grants the child three wishes — three "Anythings"— as they bravely attempt to inaugurate Apartment 3B. 

Zhang doesn't do too much or too little here — which is less common than we might want, and (I'm sure) harder than we might think. Her palette and choice of artistic media are uncomplicated. The mourning child's initial joyless black-and-white world is aptly rendered in ballpoint pen, and the apartment itself is barely there, merely sketched in — a black spiral staircase, set against stark white space; the black-outlined table they eat on, set against stark white space. Apartment 3B feels empty, desolate, un-home-like. 

As the book unfolds, color begins to appear. Just a little at first. Zhang uses swirls of primary colors emanating from inside the child to represent the child's wishes. Several small wishes remain unexpressed and unfulfilled (for a playground slide to be shorter, for the apartment not to smell like paint). But all three of the "Anythings" the child wishes for aloud are granted: for "a rainbow in my new room" (an enormous one Daddy paints on the wall); for the "biggest slice of pizza in the world" (an entire half of a pie); and, finally, in the middle of the night, "to go home." In a sweetly poignant sequence, Daddy takes his child on a piggyback ride throughout Apartment 3B, circling it again and again on this "long ride" home. And as they travel, the rooms — and the pages — begin to fill with vibrant color, bright and welcoming. Backgrounds fill in. We see that the spiral staircase leads to a loft that is clearly Daddy's artist studio, we see a comfy-looking sofa strewn with multipatterned pillows, we see books and plants and photos. We see a home. 

Zhang's art is the perfect partner for Stead's text. The initial restraint and minimalism contrasted with the bloom of color and life at book's end is extremely effective. The art hits all the notes of the Caldecott criteria: it is excellent in its pictorial interpretation of the story, is in an absolutely appropriate style, beautifully delineates mood and characters, and definitely recognizes its child audience. And as to Caldecott consideration, anything and everything goes for this memorable, deeply affecting, beautifully conceived and executed picture book.

[Read The Horn Book Magazine review of Anything]