BfK Under 5s Pre - School/Nursery/Infant contd. The Colour Thief
Gabriel Alborozo, Bloomsbury, 32pp, 978-1-4088-4760-2, £6.99 pbk
Zot’s world is a grey and colourless one, and he and all the other inhabitants are a depressed lot. From his mountain top, Zot can see the wonderfully bright and cheerful Earth below, and he desperately wants to visit it. Off he goes in his spaceship, and once there, he revels in the brilliant reds and blues and greens. He doesn’t just revel though. With his special alien powers, he is able to gather all the colours into his suitcase, and one by one they disappear, leaving the earth a dull and
boy’s orange balloon. He covets the orange colour too, but when he sees the boy’s face, he begins to realise what he has done, and that taking things from other beings is not a fair thing to do. Earth is restored, and the boy, being a generous lad, gives his orange balloon to Zot. That one bit of bright colour on Zot’s planet makes all the inhabitants happy! The artwork in this book is striking
5 – 8 Infant/Junior continued Leo: A Ghost Story
Mac Barnett, illus. Christian Robinson, Chronicle Books, 52pp, 978-1-4521-3156-6 £10.99 hbk
The contrast between the dull alien world of potato-shaped beings and the crystal-clear brilliance of Earth is magical, and the simple truth that it is wrong to take something that with subtlety. Alborozo is an artist to conjure with!
ES 5 – 8 Infant/Junior
The Day the Crayons Came Home
Drew Daywalt, illus. Oliver Jeffers, HarperCollins Children’s Books, 48pp, 978-0-0081-2443-4, £12.99 hbk
Those obstreperous crayons are back making Duncan’s life interesting. This time they are sending postcards bewailing their various fates – being sat on, eaten and puked up by a dog, melted in the sun, abandoned on holiday, or just being fed up with being pea green – and letting him know what they are going to do about it and what Oliver Jeffers realises Drew Daywalt’s that capture the character of each crayon drawing, and the occasional naturalistic illustration of a pencil, sharpener or paperclip. It’s certainly shiver, it features a Halloween themed double page spread from Glow in the Dark Crayon.
CB Take Away the A
Michael Excoffier and Kris Di Giacomo, Andersen Press, 64pp, 978-1783-4434-4, £7.99 pb
This ‘alphabeast of a book!’ is based on a simple but very interesting question: What is the effect on meaning of removing one letter from a word? Each letter of the alphabet gets a turn at being the missing letter in a particular word. So without the C ‘CHAIR’ becomes ‘HAIR’ and ‘without the U my AUNT is an ANT’. There is a wonderful harmony between the work of author and illustrator: the word play is amusing and the pictures show
absurd images conjured up. When the I is taken away from ‘STAIRS’ the illustration, in a subtle palette typical of the book’s artwork,
the delightfully
and Sam and Dave Dig a Hole comes this sweet story of a friendship that goes beyond the land of the living. Leo is a house ghost, but when a new family move into his home and shoo him away, he ventures out into the big city. Mistaking him for an imaginary friend, he forms a special bond with Jane when she invites him to play. Jane and Leo have lots of fun together, but being a ghost is not the same as being imaginary, and Leo’s ghostly nature might just save the day! Christian Robinson’s beautiful illustrations are simple and stylish; the cool blue palette perfectly captures Leo’s quiet world and the city scenes evoke classic New Yorker-style children who want a longer story. The lovely message of friendship in all forms is timeless and Barnett’s charm shines through each sentence.
KC Home
Carson Ellis, Walker Books, 978-1-4063-5942-8, 40pp, £11.99 hbk
shows a winding staircase leading to the ‘STARS’. Nocturnal creatures – an owl and the little mouse that is pictured on many of the spreads – add food for conversation. the N is removed from ‘MOON’ so that we are left with ‘MOO’ ; in a playful reference to the nursery rhyme the illustrator has the moon shouting ‘MOO’ to the cow leaping over it.
Although technically an alphabet I think this book will be best by children beyond the pre-school years. It is likely to
slightly older children’s developing knowledge about and enjoyment of language. There are many imaginative ways of using this playful book in the early years classroom. Children will enjoy telling the story shown in each spread, creating their own ‘missing letter’ pages and there is potential for lively improvisation too. MM
encourage
‘Home is a ...’ Taking this statement Carson Ellis in this debut picture of ‘home’, a place certainly, but one that will be very different depending on who or what you are. So we do not four walls, a door, windows roof and chimney. Yes, that is there, but we home of a Norse god – even a shoe. Questions are asked, demanding a response from the young reader because this isn’t a story – this is a book to inspire discussion, to jog the imagination. This is especially true because there are no photographs. Instead we have the artist’s ideas. Using cool browns, greys, soft greens so that the drama of a splash of red really draws the eye, Ellis takes us round the world – or even out of it – following the bird of imagination from the front end paper to the end. Can FH
Vikings in the Supermarket
Nick Sharratt, David Fickling Books, 272pp, 978-1-9102-0035-3, £10.99 hbk
Vikings on a shopping trip, a mermaid cheeky little vampire bat, and a tidy pirate named Clyde – just some of the colourful characters waiting to be discovered in Nick Sharratt’s new ever, his illustrations are wonderfully bright and lively, full of energy and movement, and his verse is too: it bounces along nicely with some very satisfying rhymes for young readers. He has particular fun with A Tartan Tale in which the farmer – not Macdonald
22 Books for Keeps No.215 November 2015
- lives ‘With his Scotty MacDog/ And his purry MacCat/ His MacBudgies (one green and one blue)/ His oinky MacPig/And his woolly MacSheep/And his greedy MacBillygoat too.’ Farmer, farm and livestock are all represented in stylish Sharratt tartan, an irresistible double page spread! Children will have helmets, especially when they notice that – on their return trip from the supermarket – they are augmented with bananas, carrots and ice-cream language and images, this is a verbal and visual treat for children. AR
Mister Cleghorn’s Seal
Judith Kerr, HarperCollins Children’s Books, 96pp, 978-0-0081-5730-2, £12.99 hbk
This gentle story was inspired by a small stuffed seal in Judith Kerr’s childhood home and the tale her father told about it. It’s a short story,
younger readers rather than a picture book, and it’s enhanced by charming pencil drawings, as strong as you would whose slightly faded delicate quality creates an air of nostalgia. The tale of how the seal is found, its loving but somewhat awkward relationship with Mr Cleghorn, and its eventual fate (which is a lot happier than being stuffed in the living room) is also a tale a new purpose in life after retiring from his corner shop. The world they inhabit is perhaps a little like the author’s Berlin childhood of nearly a century ago: milk carts are horse-drawn; Mr Cleghorn has a spiky moustache, a bowler hat and a bow tie; and, while a zoo at Brighton is mentioned, Mr Cleghorn lives, continental style, in an apartment block with a vigilant janitor who won’t the polite restraint of a bygone era, we central characters; to the end, while we are on more intimate terms with nearly everyone else, including Charlie the seal, they remain Mr Cleghorn and Miss Craig. It’s a delightful story from an author whose touch remains as sure HarperCollins. CB
for
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32