Stephen Biesty's Incredible Everything

With Richard Platt. DK Publishing, 1997, $19.95.

Stephen Biesty must have been one of those children who are forever taking things apart. At least as an adult, his delight in this activity is clear apparent. Biesty specializes in historical and architectural cutaway drawings. When he combines his impeccably precise, intricate illustrations with engineer Richard Platt's pithy, crystal-clear explications, the result is Incredible Everything: an oversize, colorful pictorial guide to how things are made. No subject is too small or too daunting for this duo. A typical spread features the making of soap aluminum foil, nuclear power, paper, and a pipe organ. Biesty breaks down each item illustratively, while Platt adds step-by-step instruction kicked off by an interesting fact. Under "wig" we find, "Wig thieves wigs from passing heads." With tiny, detailed illustrations crammed onto each page, and a diminutive character called chester the tester who takes the reader through each example, the book has a Where's Waldo look. But Chester and his assistant Hector the inspector are far more interesting than the blandly ubiquitous Waldo, and they attack their task with cheerful zeal. "I hope it's strong enough!" says Chester in step 8 of "Armor," as the strength of his suit metal is tested by a man wielding a crossbow. Simple entries like "Armor" in which we discover that mail-order clients sent armorers wax models of their limbs, are informative and whimsical. Others, like the ambitious four-page foldout of a Saturn V rocket, positively boggle the eye with overwhelming detail--but kids and adults will at least enjoy the sheer spectacle.

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