Our teacher showed us this book in 1993; it had full-page pencil drawings with unusual captions. I remember one of the drawings was of a young boy sleeping and the caption said something like “Archie (don’t remember last name). A small voice said ‘he’s the one.'” I think another picture was of a room or staircase, and there was a tiny, maybe six-inch high door built into the wall. I want to say our teacher mentioned that the illustrator had dropped off the illustrations and captions at a publishers, said he would return the next day, but never showed. So the pictures were published into this book but no one knows who actually drew them.
This sounds like “The Mysteries of Harris Burdick” by Chris Van Allsburg.
It is.
Betsy got here first, but it does sound like the Chris Van Allsburg book. There’s two versions, one with just the pictures, which did come out about that time, and another more recent version featuring stories suggested by the pictures. Both are worth looking up; hope this helps.
Oh-my-gosh. That’s it!! I’ve been looking for this for twenty years…thank you!!!