An Idea Balloons and Takes Flight

“You Can’t Take a Balloon Into the Metropolitan Museum.”

That real-life New York museum guard’s admonition to a 3-year-old became the title of an unusual, critically acclaimed children’s picture book created by the little girl’s aunts, writer Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman and artist Robin Preiss Glasser. Just out is the sisters’ follow-up, “You Can’t Take a Balloon Into the National Gallery.”

In the wordless books, a balloon slips its tether outside an art museum and goes on an action-packed, comic odyssey that parallels an art tour inside the museum.

Part of the fun for readers of all ages is spotting the illustrations that mirror city landmarks, real works of art and, in the second book, recognizable figures who pop up unexpectedly in Glasser’s pen-and-ink and watercolor drawings.

Glasser, a Newport Beach-based artist, theater designer and former dancer with the Pennsylvania Ballet, has illustrated several children’s books, including Judith Viorst’s upcoming “Super Completely and Totally the Messiest.” The “Balloon” series, published by Dial Books for Young Readers, is Glasser’s first collaboration with her sister; future books will revolve around Boston’s Museum of Fine Art and the Louvre.

Question: The detail on each page is remarkable. How long did the books take to do?

Answer: The first book took two years because we did the whole thing before I even gave it to my agent. We were going to present a book without words that was very complicated, and there was no way to explain it except to show it. I gave it to her, she gave it to four publishers, and we had three offers on the table the next day.

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Q: The stories have so many layers--the way you combine black-and-white and color, for instance.

A: We wanted the color to be the narrative. It’s almost like underlining. We needed a way to have the kids pay attention to what we wanted them to pay attention to. Adding [real] people was important to us too. Actually it was Jackie’s idea. When we were in Washington writing the second book, there was such a presence of history, of the people who really made things happen. So when I started drawing people--because I fill the book up with a million characters--they started to evolve, to look like people I could feel the ghosts of.

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Q: Didn’t I see Prince Charles?

A: (Laughing) There were some accidents too. As I’m drawing, it’s kind of this weird place I go into. All these people just start showing up. So some of it was on purpose and some of it just happened.

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Q: How were the actual art works chosen?

A: There’s the art that we know each museum has that’s important. And since we’re trying to grab kids and have them be excited by art, we need to have a lot of child-friendly art. Then we figure out the route [for the action] and the characters, and then we try to moosh it all together. Sometimes the art stimulates the action, and sometimes we make the action work into the art. That’s so much fun.

Glasser’s “favorite” drawing shows drum majorettes, positioned like Degas’ dancers, encountering leaping frogs.

I couldn’t tell you how that came about. I’m a big Degas fan, but now I cannot look at that Degas without seeing frogs.

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Q: How does the collaboration with your sister work?

A: We usually go to the cities three times. Once we figure out how to describe all the stuff that’s happening in each panel, we button all that down before I sit down and draw it. I fax her the sketches, and she says, “No, I don’t see it that way, I think it needs to look a little more like John Travolta”--that kind of stuff. She pushes and squeezes me until we both have the same vision of each of the characters and what everybody’s doing.

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Q: Why do you think so many adults are children’s book fans?

A: When the Met book came out in 1998, I did book signings, and I was surprised that most of the people were adults buying it for their grown children--saying, “I remember taking you to museums, or I remember going to New York with you--or for their parents, saying, “Thank you for giving me the love of travel, or of art.” My favorite, though, was a woman who said “the balloon is a metaphor for reaching for your dreams.”

BE THERE

Robin Preiss Glasser will appear for book signings at Vroman’s, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, Saturday, 10:30-noon; and at Storyopolis, 116 N. Robertson Blvd., Plaza A, Los Angeles, June 10, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., where she’ll also lead children in an art-making activity. (310) 358-2512.