When we were "reading" wordless books in my Info. Needs of Children class, I put a whole bunch on hold at the library. I used the first one that came in for my class assignment, but as other's came in, I "read" them as well.
The last one to come in, weeks after the assignment on wordless books, was You Can't Take a Balloon into the National Gallery by Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman (Author) and Robin Glasser (Illustrator). For those local to D.C., it's a *great* book! The story follows a little girl with a red balloon as she goes to the National Gallery of Art with her grandmother. She can't take the balloon inside though, so she ties it up outside. The balloon of course, floats away so the person she left guarding it chases it all through D.C. - up the Washington Monument, through the Cherry Blossom Festival and the Marine Corps Marathon, even through a session of Congress. The illustrations are filled with real people - presidents, supreme court justices, assorted historical figures - there's a guide at the back listing who everyone is on each page. It's almost like a Where's Waldo except for real people. The pages alternate between following the balloon and following the little girl and her grandmother through the museum where they look at real works of art that are actually in the National Gallery.
Unfortunately, it's out-of-print. There are two more in the series though, and both of them are still in-print: You Can't Take a Balloon Into the Metropolitan Museum and You Can't Take a Balloon into the Museum of Fine Arts. I haven't read either of them, but I imagine they are along the same lines except in New York and Boston instead.
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