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Brookie and Her Lamb by M.B. Goffstein

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ACHUKA Book of the Day 5 Mar 2021

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M. (Marilyn) B. Goffstein, who died in 2017, was an American writer and illustrator known for her precise line drawings and an ability to tell a story in the fewest possible words, using a pleasingly subtle sense of humour.

The marvellous New York Review Children’s Collection now brings two of the small-form little hardbacks by this talented minimalist back into print—this title (f.p. 1967) and Fish For Supper (1976), a Caldecott Honor book.

I can recommend this Publishers Weekly piece for a little background on Goffstein.

Fish For Supper by M. B. Goffstein

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M. (Marilyn) B. Goffstein, who died in 2017, was an American writer and illustrator known for her precise line drawings and an ability to tell a story in the fewest possible words, using a pleasingly subtle sense of humour.

The marvellous New York Review Children’s Collection now brings two of the small-form little hardbacks by this talented minimalist back into print—Brookie And Her Lamb (1967) and this title (1976), a Caldecott Honor book.

I can recommend this Publishers Weekly piece for a little background on Goffstein.

The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau by Jon Agee

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ACHUKA Book of the Day 8 Feb 2021

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A new printing of this now-classic picture book.

“Outrageous!” the judges cried. “Ridiculous!” Who would dare enter a portrait of a duck in the Grand Contest of Art? But when Felix Clousseau’s painting quacks, he is hailed as a genius. Suddenly everyone wants a Clousseau masterpiece, and the unknown painter becomes an overnight sensation. That’s when the trouble begins. The concept and plot are clever and beautifully constructed with twists and turns, and Jon Agee’s trademark wit, humour and sense of the surreal. A playful examination of what realism in art actually means, and the difference between 2 and 3 dimensional.

Jon Agee’s website: http://www.jonagee.com

Comic Classics: Treasure Island – Comic Classics by Jack Noel

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Previously: Comic Classics – Great Expectations

OLD books get NEW doodles – it’s the classics as you’ve never seen them before!

A hilarious new series that brings the classics to life with illustrations by Jack Noel. 

Jim Hawkins spends his life helping out at his mum’s boring old inn by the sea, wishing he could sail away and have adventures. But when an old sea captain turns up with a secret, it’s the start of a bigger adventure than Jim could ever have imagined – soon he’s on a ship on the trail of buried treasure, accompanied by a suspicious sailor named Long John Silver … Will Jim escape the pirates? Or will he walk the plank?


 

Telephone Tales by Gianni Rodari ill. Valerio Vidali tr. Antony Shugaar

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Every night, at nine o’clock, wherever he is, Mr. Bianchi, an accountant who often has to travel for work, calls his daughter and tells her a bedtime story. But since it’s still the 20th-century world of payphones, each story has to be told in the time that a single coin will buy. Reminiscent of Scheherazade and One Thousand and One Nights, Gianni Rodari’s Telephone Tales is composed of many stories–in fact, seventy short stories, with one for each phone call. Each story is set in a different place and a different time, with unconventional characters and a wonderful mix of reality and fantasy. One night, it’s a carousel so beloved by children that an old man finally sneaks on to understand why, and as he sails above the world, he does. Or, it’s a land filled with butter men, roads paved with chocolate, or a young shrimp who has the courage to do things in a different way from what he’s supposed to do.

Awarded the Hans Christian Anderson Award in 1970, Gianni Rodari is widely considered to be Italy’s most important children’s author of the 20th century. Newly re-illustrated by Italian artist Valerio Vidali, Telephone Tales entertains, while questioning and imagining other worlds.

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Aesop’s Fables ill. Agnes Miller Parker tr. V.S. Vernon Jones and others

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This beautifully illustrated edition contains some of the best-loved fables, including the Boy who Cried Wolf, the Lion and the Mouse, the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg, the Hare and the Tortoise, and The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse alongside many of the lesser-known tales.

These timeless stories are illustrated with thirty-seven woodcuts by Agnes Miller Parker (1895–1980), one of the greatest British woodcut artists of the twentieth century. Parker was influenced by the art of Wyndham Lewis and the Cubist and Vorticist movements, which flourished in the period between the wars. Her distinctive work is strikingly stylised and deceptively simple. Commissioned in the 1930s by the fine press publisher, Gregynog Press, for their edition of the work, these exquisite woodcuts inspired by the fables are among Parker’s finest engravings.

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Hansel and Gretel: A Fairy Tale Revolution by Jeanette Winterson ill. Laura Barrett

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A fairy tale remix…

Greta lives with her brother Hansel on the edge of a great forest – a forest in danger of destruction.

GreedyGuts, their aunt, doesn’t appreciate Hansel and Greta’s plans to replant trees and save the forest. In fact, she thinks they’re horrible little vegetarians.

GreedyGuts doesn’t give two hoots about nature. She favours luxury and living it up: eating, shopping and partying hard. And so she hatches a plan to get rid of the meddling, do-gooder kids…deep in the wood.

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Blueblood: A Fairy Tale Revolution by Malorie Blackman ill. Laura Barrett

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ACHUKA Book of the Day 7 Oct 2020

A feminist retelling of Bluebeard.

Nia has met the man she wants to marry. Marcus is kind, clever and handsome, with a beard so dark it is nearly blue-black. Nia demands a single promise from him – that Marcus will never enter her study in the basement, her private space.

But when Marcus’s curiosity begins to mount Nia feels more and more uneasy. Will he betray her? Can he accept that no means no? Can a woman ever have a room of her own?

Laura Barrett is an illustrator inspired by the darker side of folk and fairy tales, and enjoys working in the medium of traditional Scherenschnitte (paper cutting). She ‘enjoyed flicking through fashion and interior design magazines as inspiration for talented protagonist Nia’s sharp eye for design.’
Follow Laura on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurabarrettuk/

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Witch Child by Celia Rees

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20th Anniversary updated edition of this outstanding, historical YA novel…

When Mary sees her grandmother accused of witchcraft and hanged for the crime, she is silently hurried to safety by an unknown woman. The woman gives her tools to keep the record of her days – paper and ink. Mary is taken to a boat in Plymouth and from there sails to the New World where she hopes to make a new life among the pilgrims. But old superstitions die hard and soon Mary finds that she, like her grandmother, is the victim of ignorance and stupidity, and once more she faces important choices to ensure her survival. With a vividly evoked environment and characters skilfully and patiently drawn, this is a powerful literary achievement by Celia Rees that is utterly engrossing from start to finish.

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