The Three Golden Keys

Author/Illustrator: Sis, Peter
Published by: Doubleday 1994
Genre: Fantasy, Picture Book, Multi-cultural
Age Range: 3-4th grade

This book, written to his daughter Madeleine, is about Peter Sis and his fictitious trip back to the city of his childhood. A wild storm carried the hot air balloon that he is traveling in off course and her finds himself back in Prague. When he arrives the city is deserted but still looks the way it did when he was young. He finds his way to his childhood home and discovers that it is locked with three padlocks. His black cat leads him through the city to three places that he enjoyed as a child, my favorite was the Astronomical clock. In each place he reads a Czech legend and receives a key. After reading all the legends and receiving all the keys he goes back to his house and unlocks the door. His mother welcomes him, and it is like he has never left Prague and now he has brought his daughter with him.

I love Sis' attachment to his roots and his attention to detail. This is the second book I have read of his where he is trying to recreate for his reader the culture of his childhood. The first one I read, "The Wall" brought out the sad and bad things of his childhood but this story shares some of the good things of the city. These are the things he wanted to share with his daughter. All of his illustrations are very detailed, even the images that seem simple, like the weather balloon on the first page, have very detailed textures. I also like how he has a hidden image of a cat throughout the whole book. On one page the city looks like it has cat eyes, in others the doors look like cat faces. He plays with the process of juxtaposing one image on top of another to add new or more meaning.

This could easily be adapted into a lesson for any age group. In grade 3 students are supposed to learn about fables and myths and learn how to incorporate them in their art. Sis incorporated the legends of his culture into this book. Grade 4 is learning about North Carolina and they could work on illustrating a legend or tale from North Carolina's history. For older students into the middle and high school age range Sis' images could be used as examples of line drawing, juxtaposition, use of color as a symbol, etc.