The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Today, I was going to write about price tags in books, but then I found this and I cried (in a good way). You can ignore whatever is written below this sentence, but do watch the video, all 15 minutes of it, especially if you love books.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a 15-minute animated short film by Moonbot Studies that tells “a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor”. And what a story it is.

A quick plot summary. The story stars the titular Mr. Morris Lessmore, who is happily living in an unnamed town, writing a book (and surrounded by them, too), until a hurricane hits his town. While many survive, including Mr. Morris Lessmore, the town has been completely destroyed, their lives forever changed. All that is left is ruins and, interesting enough, books’ pages. Mr. Morris Lessmore, left with a blank book (the hurricanes took his writing off the book) leaves the ruined town and keeps on walking. That is, until he sees a woman being pulled across the sky by flying books. She gives Mr. Morris Lessmore a book she was holding, and the books leads him to an isolated house, filled with books – even the bed is a giant book! And so the second part of the story begins.

If you are still reading this for whatever reason (why would you, just watch the video. Go!) then I hope you have finished watching (I’m serious, go!), because I’m going to spoil some really powerful scenes.

This video really goes hand in hand with what I’ve been talking about in the last few days in regards to books, and how it is my belief that they are alive, and that all books want is to be read. A good example of this in the short-film is when Mr. Morris Lessmore (I refuse to call him anything but his full name) glues a really, really old book back together, but no matter what he does, he seems unable to save the book, at least until the other books hint him as to what he must do – read.

And it is the act of reading that allows him and through him, the population of the town devastated by the hurricane, to heal. This is shown in the film by depicting everyone in colour at the beginning of the film, but later are shown in grey – as if their lives has been sucked out of them – after the hurricane. In Mr. Morris Lessmore’s case, he regains his ‘colour’ once he starts interacting in the house of flying books (I really don’t know what else to call it). Through him, the town gets access to books and through those books, they regain their ‘colour back’ – their life.

More than just that, by interacting with the flying books, Mr. Morris Lessmore is able to start writing his book one more time – the same book that ‘died’ when the hurricane hit and lost all its letters. And by writing again through his whole life, Mr. Morris Lessmore is able to give his book life.

Once he finished, we are shown that he has grown old, really old. His time has come, to move on. We are shown him leaving the house, holding on the book his written. But before that happens, he is surrounded by books, and just as he dedicated his whole life to the books in the house, now it is their turn to return the favour. Having regained his youth, he is pulled across the sky by (you guessed it) flying books, in the same way as the woman he saw earlier in the film. And just like he received a book from that women, so he gives the book he wrote – the one he gave life to, to a lone little girl, who is guided to the House of Flying Books. And the cycle continues.

And that’s about the part where I lose it, because it is so amazing and so, so true. Books are these amazing, beautiful things. Books, even if they are black text on white paper, have the ability to bring so much life and colour on to our life, probably more than any other medium in the history of humanity. And every writer, even when they die, they leave something behind, and that’s their books. Just like how Mr. Morris Lessmore’s book gave ‘colour’ to the little girl, so does every other book in existence, and The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore shows that idea just… perfectly.