Tuesday 14 June 2011

books and covers

Do you judge a book by it's cover? I do, this is definitely true when it comes to children's books. I'm always attracted to the illustrations first. I'm rarely disappointed.

I'm newly in love with the wonderful children's books by Oliver JeffersWe have had How To Catch a Star for a while. But we were all totally blown away with The Incredible Book Eating Boy, we've had this out from the library, and we keep going back and finding it again, and again. 


The story is of a boy who is distracted one day and accidently licks a book, then eats a word, then a page, and before long he's eating whole books. 
The more he eats, the cleverer he gets, he wants to be the smartest boy on earth. He loves it, even though everyone tells him it's no good for him.


Until one day, everything starts going wrong - everything gets jumbled up in his head and it's embarassing to speak. He stops eating books, but doesn't know what to do. Then he picks up a book and reads, and learns and  eats broccoli.
I love it, we love it, Little Missy can't put it down. And the illustrations are charming, the characters are uncomplicated and the scenes incorporate old pages from books and words float around, it's quite enchanting. I think a copy will have to come and live here forever. 

We're also loving The Great Paper Caper, I could get a little obsessive here, but again the illustrations had me. 
Branches mysteriously start to go missing in the woods, the animals turn detective to find out who's taking them. They follow the clues and track down the culprit and then hold a hearing. 


When bear tells his story, they feel sad that he had no-one to turn to for help. They then set about helping him make the best paper plane so he can win the competition that his ancestors had previously held the title for. Bear plants new trees to make up for his crime. Charming and you really feel bears loneliness in the book, magical.




I know I'm showing pictures of books here, despite my rant over copyright and images on the internet. 
I'm sucking up my hypocrisy.

If you fancy joining in and sharing a book you're into right now, send me a link to a post you write and I'll add it to this one so we can all see what you're reading. Novel, cookbook, children's book, you choose. 

Link back to here and share some book love. 


Flaming Nora is loving Splash, a children's book


take a look!

x
 

5 comments:

  1. One of the things you miss out on as your children grow up is new children's books. I have kept most of the boys books, hopefully for future generations, although I'm not sure if we will still be using the printed page by then! Your choices look amazing.

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  2. oh Colette, we love How to catch a Star. Actually that was my big boys choice of character for their book parade last year. We love that book. I have not heard of the book eating boy book. Going to have to have a look for it now. Oliver Jeffers is awesome. Oh and we also love his other book The Way Back Home.
    Woo hoo to your moustache egg cosy getting on the front page of Etsy. awesome!!
    Your wedding dress hem photo is just stunning, This pic would look awesome in a wedding album. All the very best with the bridesmaids dresses, how many do you have to make? Oh gosh, I hope you are able to post pics of them after the wedding of course.
    Your little brooches are so cute, I love them. You are so very talented. Brooch making is one of those items on my list. *sigh* the neverending list of things to make. lol. have a wonderful weekend at your place.

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  3. Just realised you have done this post, after I have written one based on a book we love. How odd and serendipitous if that is such a word! its about a book called "Splash" by Henrietta Brandford and Rosalind Beardshaw. Have a gander. xx

    http://flaming-nora.blogspot.com/2011/06/s-p-l-s-h-come-on-everybody-lets-go-to.html

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  4. Oh wow, I actually didn't realise Oliver Jeffers had so many books! I'm off to order both of these online now, thanks. I've just popped over via Small Catalogue. Hello to you! Here's a (not so new) post of mine on a couple of books I love.

    http://dear-olive.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-books-old-books.html

    Kellie xx

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  5. I love children's illustrations in book s- I still hoard all my own 1970's copies - I thought I'd given them to my children when I had them but time has passed me by and I enjoy them myself! I also love Ed Boxall's work (he's a local Hastings illustrator and story writer) as well as Sara Farinelli who seems to have hit the big time - her work is licensed and on sale now at The Tate.
    Keep up the good work with your lovely blog. x K

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