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Is It Asleep? by Olivier Tallec tr. Antony Shugaar

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ACHUKA Book of the Day 15 Aug 2025

Waterstones
Bookshop

See also:
A Better Best Friend [ACHUKA Book of the Day 27 May 2024)

Another wonderful picture book from Olivier Tallec. Squirrel and Pock, the mushroom, are back together in their woodland when they notice they are missing the song of the bird they like best, a blackbird. They look for it everywhere and eventually find its body lying on the forest floor. The gradual realisation that the bird is dead and the way in which (after being joined by Gunther, a mouse) they are moved to respond is handled so movingly. The text, in an excellent translation from the French by Antony Shugaar, is pitch perfect, and the illustrations just as charmingly idiosyncratic as in A Better Best Friend. 

A strong contender for ACHUKA’s Picture Book of the Year.

Squirrel and his best friend, Pock the mushroom, sit on the old stump, watching birds fly by. When they’re tired of this, they take the path to the yellow meadow to listen to the blackbird sing. But today, the bird’s not there. The friends look everywhere. Finally they find it on the path, all stretched out and quite still. It must be sleeping. They sit down quietly and wait for the bird to wake. This true-to-child story of a natural encounter with an animal that has died is both dryly humorous and a profound example of how to manage the comings and goings of life.

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A post shared by Olivier Tallec (@olivier_tallec)

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