Picture writing at WNEP 'Mysteries' spring from Van Allsburg drawings

'The Mysteries of Harris Burdick'

Opens Thursday, to May 25

WNEP Theater, 3209 N. Halsted

Tickets, $15

In his many children's books, author-illustrator Chris VanAllsburg looks at the world from unexpected angles, transforming thefamiliar into the vaguely grotesque, the ordinary into the eerie. Hisdrawings and text meld into a wonderland of the possible andimpossible.

One of these books, 1984's The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, went astep further with the creative process. The book's large black-and-white drawings were accompanied by only a line of explanation,allowing the reader to advance the story through the powers of …