The House with 100 Stories - by Toshio Iwai

About the Book

"First published in Japan in 2008 by Kaisei-Sha Publishing Co., Ltd, Tokyo"--Indicia.

Book Synopsis

100 floors. 100 new friends. 100 stories. Flip open this towering book vertically to climb and count with Tochi as he tries to discover who lives at the top of a strange, magical house.

Tochi receives a mysterious invitation to the House with 100 Stories. On each floor, Tochi meets the colorful, animal residents from squirrels working on their bonsai garden to bats taking baths on the ceiling. But who sent the invitation? Why do they live at the top of this strange house? Tochi must climb to the top to find out!

With a unique structure, readers flip open this book vertically to reveal towering illustrations of the House with 100 Stories. Readers feel like they are climbing the tower with Tochi as they follow the text from bottom to top.

Where's Waldo? meets My Neighbor Totoro in this highly detailed and adorably illustrated counting book. Each floor features its own mini story as the reader counts with Tochi from 1 to 100. Packed with fun, hidden details, young readers will discover something new with every read.

A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year
A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Review Quotes

"This Japanese import employs a unique vertical format that will surprise and delight young readers, and the unusual configuration gives a real sense of Tochi's ascension, allowing for terrific spreads of uninterrupted 10-story cross sections. Every humorous page bursts with wonderfully specific details that beg for repeat examinations. An incredibly creative chronicle well worth the climb."--Booklist

"The premise gives artist Iwai plenty of opportunities to tickle readers' fancy and encourage repeated viewings: the enumerated floors are shown as cutaway-style rooms, each spotlighting details and vignettes that illuminate each species' particular domestic lives and interior design tastes. Readers should get a good giggle from how the snakes' house is built for slithering and how the lightly eerie bat house has everything upside down--including the toilet and bathtub."--Publishers Weekly

"A vertical journey through a well-imagined, wonder-filled world."--Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Toshio Iwai is a Japanese interactive media and installation artist who has also created a number of commercial video games. In addition he has worked in television, music performance, museum design and digital musical instrument design. Iwai graduated from the University of Tsukuba with a master's degree in Plastic Art and Mixed Media. His award-winning installations include Time Stratum, which won the Gold prize at the 1985 High Technology Art Exhibition in Shibuya Seibu, Tokyo, and Time Stratum II which was awarded the Grand Prize at the 17th Contemporary Japanese Art Exhibition, Meguro Art Museum, Tokyo. Iwai was an artist-in-Residence at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, California, Iwai's works Well of Lights and Music Insects are part of the Exploratorium's permanent collection.