I can’t say when I first became obsessed with endpapers, but I know the exact moment I realized they could be the subject of a terrific exhibition. I was visiting the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, in Amherst, Massachusetts, not long after Carle’s death, in 2021. A memorial retrospective included six of his glorious endpapers for books such as The Very Quiet Cricket and Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See? No mere visual addenda, they held their own on the walls alongside the rest of his exuberantly colorful work. Bingo, I thought. More, please. Happily, when I pitched the idea of an endpapers show, the Carle said yes and even allowed me, an enthusiast but no expert, to guest-curate it (with the essential support of the museum’s skilled and imaginative curators, designers, and researchers). Even more happily, we soon learned that a lot of wonderful picture-book artists—among them, Caldecott winners and honorees Sophie Blackall, Christian Robinson, Brendan Wenzel, and Grace Lin—were eager to lend their endpapers and highlight this often overlooked aspect of picture book–making. —Bruce Handy