|
| Emily Gravett |
| Macmillan |
| 1405052155 |
| Aug 2006 |
 |
|
Having just won the Carnegie medal for her debut picture-book “Wolves”, Emily Gravett makes a welcome return with “Meerkat Mail” a story of the meerkat, Sunny, who sometimes finds togetherness with his family a little too close for comfort…
Living in the Kalahari Desert with his large family makes Sunny long for a place of his own. So it is he packs his case, leaves a note of explanation for his family – replicated in photographic form within the book – and sets off to find a new home. Sunny’s travels lead him to his Uncle Bob’s, to stay with cousins Scratch and Mitch , to cousin Edward and to numerous other family members. Lift-the-flap postcards presented ‘as-written-by-Sunny’ provide additional ‘colour’ to the story giving an intimate account of Sunny’s adventures. Gravett’s observations of Meerkat behaviour is exceptional and creates a vibrant contrast with the detailed simulated facsimiles postcards from Sunny. This is a sophisticated and clever picture-book that benefits from multiple, close readings, that does not patronise its reader and that successfully widens both field and audience for the picture-book, admirable achievements worthy of celebration.
|
Picture Books: August 2006 Archives
|
| Alexandra Junge |
| Wingedchariot Press |
| 1905341067 |
| May 2006 |
| |
|
Originally published in Germany, "A Night-Time Tale" is the latest European picture-book offering made available by Wingedchariot press. The book opens as Laura, a nychtophobe, descends into bed postulating over why it has to get dark. Alexandra Junge’s illustrations brilliantly portray the way darkness leaches forth from Laura’s unconscious mind and the types of primitive, base fears, twisted torturously into the horrific far from the familiar or recognisable that proliferates amidst the darkness.
Taking her fears to the logical, if extreme conclusion, Laura wonders why it cannot always be daytime and ponders over a world without night. Laura’s imagination and the illustrations depicting this verge on the surreal as astronomers pan the sky fervently looking for stars, as giant road-rollers level no-longer-needed lamp-posts, as confusions of chickens wonder when to lay breakfast eggs, as plants grow to ever more extreme heights, as the sun lapses into exhaustion and as there are no more dreams, no endless possibilities and escape from the fears of the everyday. “A Night-Time Tale” is a reassuring read that challenges readers to look and think beyond their initial fears and in so doing that introduces us to impressively wide and varied imaginative vistas.
|
