Keep Your Eye on the Kid

(Primary) When comedian Buster Keaton was a child performer in vaudeville, the audience preferred him not to smile, and his dad would whisper, “Face,” to remind him to keep a serious expression no matter what the antic. In this picture-book biography, art imitates life through a deadpan text that outlines Buster’s life from birth to his early days in Hollywood. “As for school, I went only one day. Miss What’s-Her-Name said, ‘You, Keaton, give me a sentence with the word delight.’ Without thinking, I said, ‘It’s dark, turn on delight.’” Brighton uses comic-book frames masterfully. On some pages, narrow horizontal frames show a perspective differing from the main illustration, while on others two vertical frames propel the action. Exceptions come at pivotal points in the narrative. In one, Buster fiddles with a movie camera; two vertical frames show this moment, one from far away, and the second as a close-up revealing the parts of the machine. The text imparts the importance of the variation: “Gee, that thing, I loved it. Just the feel of it.” Appended are an author’s note, a brief bibliography of adult books, and a list of Keaton films available on DVD that invite further exploration of the man and his movies. b.c.