When the sailor Martin Eden first sees an oil painting, he dismisses it as a "trick picture," because the image seems to dissolve when he moves close enough to see the brushstrokes; there is an echo of White Fang's puppy snarl at the unfamiliar.
That's the trick with picture books: you have to bear in mind who's reading them, and add in something to move the grown-ups too.
Now that you have the answer key to writing an A-quality commencement address, here's one last tip for extra credit: If you find yourself experiencing jittery nerves on the big day, don't resort to the tired old trick of picturing the audience in its underwear.
Through Dec. 5. "How Pictures Trick Us Into Seeing," an interactive exhibition.
No Facebook meant not having to see some trick's vacation pictures eight years later because you're afraid to unfriend him or her (or, if you're lucky, them!).
And that was a hit that brought a coffin full of Oscars, including the rare hat trick of best picture, actor and actress, to the troubled Orion Pictures.
If Welles had pulled it off, "Wind" would have been a death-defying trick: a comeback picture about a doomed director who can't finish his comeback picture.
Virtually every trick of the picture book artist's trade may be found somewhere in Caldecott's 16 little books.
Rose Levy Beranbaum, in her book "The Cake Bible" (William Morrow, 1988), gives the trick for a picture-perfect poundcake top: After the cake has been baking for 20 minutes, grease a sharp knife, and draw a shallow line about six inches long down the middle.
The trick is, the picture is moving.
