June 2019
Children’s picture book reviews round-up – to the moon and back
Publishers this summer seem determined to produce the next generation of space explorers. July marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landings, and picture book authors have responded to the event with gusto across space-themed fiction and factual titles.
The pick of the bunch is Viviane Schwarz’s fictional How to Be on the Moon (6 June, Walker), which perfectly captures its magnetic pull.
The second adventure for Schwarz’s best-friend duo Anna and Crocodile finds Anna longing to visit the white glimmering ball she can see out of her window.
“But that’s out in space,” says Crocodile… “It will be almost impossible.”
Together they decide that if they take their special skills – maths, patience – along with sandwiches and travel games, they can make it happen.
With her inky, splotchy illustrations and can-do characters, Schwarz beautifully depicts the boundless energy and enthusiasm of small children and the chit-chat style of their speech. Near the end, as the duo admire Earth from space, the book echoes Crocodile’s opening line as he says, rapturously: “It’s almost impossibly beautiful.”
South Africa: buy the book here.
Neal Layton’s forthcoming nonfiction book also focuses on planet Earth, but the hot topic he’s interested in is waste.
A Planet Full of Plastic (27 June, Wren and Rook), has a brilliantly light touch for such a big issue.
Probably best known for illustrating the picture book That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown, here Layton employs his trademark collage style and a fun, informative tone to explain to kids why plastic is a problem.
The book opens with a narrator asking a wide-eyed boy about what things are made of and attempts to explain vocabulary such as “biodegrade” via interjections from the child. A masterclass in how to introduce eco themes to the young without inducing panic, Layton’s book focuses on practical ways to make a difference and incorporates photos within his illustrations to gently reinforce that this is a real-world issue.
South Africa: buy the book here.
The standard picture-book role of the pea as mealtime reject is cleverly flipped by author Kjartan Poskitt and illustrator Alex Willmore in The Runaway Pea (11 July, Simon and Schuster).
Here he becomes a hero in search of a better life:
“‘Just watch!’ said the pea, ‘I’ve hardly begun, I might only be small but I want to have fun!’”
Reminiscent of Clare Foges’s and Al Murphy’s vibrant and much-loved Kitchen Disco, kids will enjoy Willmore’s primary-coloured veggies with highly expressive faces and Poskitt’s lively rhyming verse as the pea plops, splashes, bangs and twangs his way across the kitchen.
Also looking to make little ones laugh this summer, the world-renowned Flat Stanley, the tale of a boy who wakes up one morning half-an-inch thick after being squashed by a pinboard, has been adapted for the picture book format.
I was initially sceptical about the need to bring Jeff Brown’s 1960s classic to younger kids. Why not have them wait and enjoy the original chapter book? But, with the talented Rob Biddulph providing illustrations alongside text reworked from Brown’s original, it flies. Both authors share the same spirit of madcap adventure.
South Africa: buy this book here.
One of the favourite characters of last year makes a welcome return in Billy and the Dragon (8 August, Jonathan Cape), Nadia Shireen’s follow-up to Billy and the Beast.
This time her big-haired heroine Billy, decked out as a knight for a fancy-dress party, battles to save her sidekick Fatcat from the clutches of a dragon. With deliciously fresh and witty words and pictures (watch out for the tiny mice dressed as a hotdog, a bee and an astronaut on a bouncy castle), Shireen’s latest book confirms her as one of the brightest and best picture book creators working in Britain today.
The only pity is that you’ll have to wait until August for it to come out. Sensational.
To order any of these books go to guardianbookshop.com
Alternatively for more news on children’s books in the UK, visit www.theguardian.com.
