''Sector 7'' is a

wordless picture book A wordless picture book or a almost-wordless picture book is a picture book whose narrative is expressed through the illustrations. Format Wordless picture books, according to Arizona State University professor Frank Serafini, have "visually rend ...

created and illustrated by

David Wiesner David Wiesner (born February 5, 1956) is an American illustrator and writer of children's books, known best for picture books including some that tell stories without words. As an illustrator he has won three Caldecott Medals recognizing the year ...

. Published in 1999 by

Clarion Books HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Corp ...

, it was the recipient of the

Caldecott Honor The Randolph Caldecott Medal, frequently shortened to just the Caldecott, annually recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Service ...

for

illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in print and digital published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vid ...

in 2000.American Library Association
Caldecott Medal Winners, 1938 - Present
. URL accessed January 27, 2007.

Summary

The story is set at the

Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the st ...

observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysical, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. His ...

, where a class of school children are on a field trip. The primary character is a boy befriended by a cloud who is whisked away to Sector 7, the depot for clouds. There the boy produces blueprints of fantastic new designs, in the form of ocean creatures, for the disgruntled group of young clouds. As the young clouds experiment, they delight in their new forms. The adult clouds running the cloud depot are furious when they discover the young clouds' misbehavior, and they escort the boy back to the observatory. However, once the blueprints are examined further by the adults, they begin to admire the possibilities contained within them. As the children return home on the school bus, the

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

skyline becomes filled with a profusion of clouds in the shapes of aquarium fish and ocean creatures.

Planned film adaptation

In May 2000,

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...

won a bidding war against

Pixar Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, Californi ...

in acquiring the film rights to the novel ''Sector 7'' with

Darren Aronofsky Darren Aronofsky (born February 12, 1969) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. His films are noted for their surrealistic, melodramatic, and sometimes disturbing elements, often in the form of psychological fiction. Aronof ...

attached to direct and

Good Machine Good Machine Productions was an American independent film production, film distribution, and foreign sales company started in the early 1990 by its co-founders and producers, Ted Hope and James Schamus. David Linde joined as a partner in the late ...

as co-producer. As of April 2019, the project remains in

development hell Development hell, development purgatory, and development limbo are media and software industry jargon for a project, concept, or idea that remains in development for an especially long time, often moving between different crews, scripts, game engi ...

References

{{Portal , Children's literature American picture books Children's fiction books 1999 children's books Caldecott Honor-winning works Empire State Building in fiction Wordless books Clarion Books books Children's books set in New York City