Handpicked by Amazon kids’ books editor, Seira Wilson, for Prime Book Box – a children’s subscription that inspires a love of reading. Break-in at the Three Bears family home? It could only be one dame. Wicked witch gone missing from her candied cottage? Hansel and Gretel claim it was self-defense. Did Humpty Dumpty really just fall off that wall, or was he pushed? Here are five fairy-tale stories with a twist, all told from the point of view of a streetwise police officer called Binky, who just happens to be a toad in a suit and a fedora. When Snow White doesn't make it to the beauty pageant, Officer Binky is the first to find the apple core lying by her bed. When an awful giant mysteriously crashes to the ground, upsetting the whole town, Binky discovers exactly who is responsible. Author David Levinthal and illustrator John Nickle retell these classic stories in the style of a 1940s noir detective novel—for kids!

Who Pushed Humpty Dumpty?: And Other Notorious Nursery Tale Mysteries

Children's Books

Levinthal, David

Fairy Tales, Folk Tales & Myths

Schwartz & Wade

Photographs by David Levinthal. Text by Gary Trudeau.

Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43

History

Garry Trudeau

Europe

Sheed Andrew & McMeel, Inc.

Since his first publication in 1977, Hitler Moves East, photographer David Levinthal has explored a panoply of compelling issues in representation. Using toy soldiers, dolls, and other figurines, Levinthal, in Mein Kampf has created dramatic tableaux which engage the narrative of Hitler's rise to power and the Nazi campaign to wipe out the Jews and other marginal groups of people. Although miniature in scale, Levinthal's Storm Troopers, concentration camps guards and Hitler's complicit phalanx assume monumental proportions photographed with the Polaroid 20 x 24" studio camera. Shot against flaming red skies, and cold, steel-blue interiors, the spectacle of military pageantry and the senseless slaughter of men, women, and children converge in a disturbing critique of collective memory.

Mein Kampf

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

Twin Palms Pub

Hitler Moves East

JMC & GHB Editions

“A serious chronicle of war and a sympathetic—even moving—portrayal of the soldier’s hopeless stoicism. " — New York Times  First published to little notice in 1977, Hitler Moves East is now widely regarded as a groundbreaking classic of modern photography. In this elegant, large-format limited edition, David Levinthal and Garry Trudeau’s seminal book is finally being presented at a scale that does full justice to their haunting vision of war.    As the New York Times pointed out ten years after publication, “Levinthal’s war pictures are radically new," and indeed they were. Using cheap, molded plastic toy soldiers and tanks, art school classmates Trudeau and Levinthal conceived a fascinating new narrative form, a “paper movie,” at once deeply evocative and unabashedly fake. Combining selected archival materials with photographs of 1/35-scale toys placed in meticulously constructed miniature settings, the two artists conjured up an astonishing reimagining of World War II’s most epic campaign—the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Traveling precariously between fantasy and reality, Levinthal and Trudeau produced a work now recognized as both a sublime graphic manifesto and a powerful documentary of men at war.

Trudeau, G.B.

Levinthal and Trudeau

Photographs of Western scenes featuring toy figures are accompanied by an interview with the artist about his work

The Wild West: Photographs by David Levinthal

Individual Artists

Smithsonian Institution Press

“I became intrigued at how seeming reality could be constructed from mere models. Over the more than 30 years that I have been working as an artist, I never ceased to be amazed at how much these figures and toys can tell us about ourselves.” —David Levinthal  Produced during the final phase of the Vietnam War, Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941–43 was first released in 1977, presenting a powerful restaging of events from World War II that remains just as poignant today. Having sold out all but 800 copies, this piece of historical mock-documentary is now available from powerHouse Books.  To a child with toy soldiers and a few tanks, the imagination creates the reality of war. In the hands of two graphic innovators, David Levinthal and Garry Trudeau, the elements of childhood are transfigured into astonishing and sometimes horrifying images. Combining selected archival materials with their own meticulously constructed miniature settings, the authors have provided a haunting recreation of World War II’s most dramatic campaign—the German invasion of the Soviet Union. What emerges from their story is a special sort of truth born of contrast; a visual history told in terms of uncommon contradictions. Traveling precariously between imagination and reality, Levinthal and Trudeau have produced a work which is at once a sublime graphic manifesto and a powerful documentary of men at war.

Trudeau, Garry

powerHouse Books

“So clever, so thematically complicated are David Levinthal's artistic photographs one could mistake them for intellectual riddles.” —Roger Rosenblatt Dealing with war in any context is always a difficult and often problematic venture. In I.E.D., acclaimed photographer David Levinthal uses toy soldiers and plastic Humvees to attempt to explore and understand the ongoing conflict in Iraq. Why simulate a war with toys when it is already so familiar to us through daily news broadcasts, and so well documented by photojournalists and soldier-generated cell-phone imagery? In part is it because this book is not just a recreation of the war in Iraq; it is also a commentary about our society and how it is imaging and imagining a war through the use of such direct and immediate signifiers. Never before has there been an instance of such a massive production of toys directly related to a current and unresolved conflict. Levinthal has always viewed toys as both an abstraction and as a tool by which a society and a culture socializes itself. The choice of which and what kind of toys are created, how they are posed, and what they are attempting to represent reflects assumptions about a society’s views. I.E.D. is an attempt to look at these questions using the canvas of the war in Iraq, and the new and frightening aspects of this conflict. The acronym I.E.D. (improvised explosive device), unknown to most until just a few years ago, is now a part of our daily vocabulary. By abstracting what is already distant and foreign, Levinthal brings a new perspective to the discourse about this war, going beyond reality to create a new and perhaps more immediate presence.

I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq

Of all of David Levinthal's series of photographs, none is more challenging and provocative than his "Blackface" series, created over the previous three years. In his blow-up images of miniature toys he has recreated scenes of racism, genocide, and sexual fantasies. This series explores the Blackface myth embodied in "black memorabilia," household objects infused with African-American stereotypes. These images make the Blackface myth speak to us directly, without an intermediary, and demand a response from us regardless of our race, age, or gender. Levinthal's "Blackface" images present a paradox, one that pits the beauty of photographic representation against the racism underscored by these ignoble objects. Magnified with a 20 x 24 inch Polaroid camera, the "Blackface" pictures explore viewer subjectivity and question the manufacture and popularity of "black memorabilia," particularly the recent resurgence of their collectibility among African Americans. The photographs are accompanied by an in-depth essay by noted writer, critic, and filmmaker Manthia Diawara, an expert on the representation of African Americans in film, photography and popular media. This book promises to make a significant contribution to contemporary African-American studies.

Blackface

Diawara, Manthia

Arena Editions

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Levinthal, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Levinthal, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Levinthal, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Who Pushed Humpty Dumpty?: And Other Notorious Nursery Tale Mysteries

Who Pushed Humpty Dumpty?: And Other Notorious Nursery Tale Mysteries

Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43

Mein Kampf

Hitler Moves East

Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43

The Wild West: Photographs by David Levinthal

Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43

I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq

Blackface