This is originally a French book by an art professor at École Polytechnic in Paris, translated by Hildegard Serle. It is actually a book that surreptitiously instructs on how to admire/study major works of art by interweaving a story in 52 chapters. Apparently, the ruse has worked and it was a best-seller in Europe and has been translated in thirty-eight languages.
Mona is a ten year old girl who suddenly loses her eyesight completely. As the parents are taking her to the hospital, the vision returns inexplicably after about an hour. Doctors cannot pinpoint the cause of the episode but guess at a TIA (transient ischemic attack). MRI does not reveal anything untoward. The doctor recommends that the parents consult a child therapist.
An appointment with a therapist is scheduled for every Wednesday and Mona is to be taken to the therapist by her grandfather whom she calls Dadé. Dadé welcomes the task, except that he does not think that a therapist is what Mona needs. Instead he takes Mona to the museum and shows her just one work of art on every Wednesday. Mona must carefully study the work quietly for at least 10-15 minutes and after that both of them discuss the features of the piece. While Mona is studying the work, the author describes many details of the art, the artist and the reasons for the importance of the piece.
The novel is structured in 52 chapters for the weeks in the year with each chapter devoted to the work visited by Mona and Dadé. Each chapter begins with a part about Mona and her time in school with her friends or when she is at home with her parents who are going through their own problems. Then the chapter continues with her and Dadé going to a museum where there is about a page-long description of the work of art and the following interaction between the two. This structure works quite well to keep the reader engaged, even though the accompanying story is not that interesting. But, a non-fiction book with 52 chapters that just describes different works of art could never hold a casual reader engaged. This structure appears to do that.
The book jacket is a large double fold-out poster that has small reproductions of all the 52 works of art numbered in order of the chapters. So, it is easy to follow the description of each piece with its photo on the book jacket. However, all the photos are no more than about 2-3 inches in size and too small to see the details described in the text. It would have been much better if there were full page size photos with each chapter.
