If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I am a HUGE fan of TOON BOOKS. If you don't please read TOON BOOKS: Why I Love Them and Why You Should Too!, which explores the interesting background of the creator of the series, her inspiration (the boring books available when her son was learning to read) and all the other fantastic things about this great new series - including the
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Blog: Children's Book Reviews and Then Some (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Beginning Readers, TOON BOOKS, Add a tag
Blog: Children's Book Reviews and Then Some (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Graphic Novel, Beginning Readers, TOON BOOKS, Add a tag
200 - 300 Easy Sight Words, Short Sentences Often One Character, Single Time Frame or Theme, 1 -2 Panels per Page I realize that I am often going on about the lack of high quality, beginning to read books that have appealing content both visually and texturally, and believe me, every title published by TOON Books meets all my criteria for a great beginning reader book, but
Blog: Children's Book Reviews and Then Some (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Graphic Novel, Beginning Readers, aauthor: Hayes, Reading Level 1.5, TOON BOOKS, Literary Rodents, Add a tag
Benny and Penny in LIGHTS OUT! is Geoffrey Hayes's fourth Benny and Penny titles and his fifth TOON Book. And I still love these little mice as much as I did when I read and reviewed their first book back in 2010. As many parents know, including François Mouly, who founded TOON Books as a response to the dearth of good primers, it is very hard to write an engaging beginning readers title.
Blog: Children's Book Reviews and Then Some (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Graphic Novel, Fantasy, TOON BOOKS, New in Hardcover, Reading Level 1.5, aauthor: Nytra, Add a tag
The Secret of the Stone Frog marks a new direction for the peerless TOON Books, publishers of easy to read comics for emerging readers. While the TOON comic books that have come before are 32 pages long, The Secret of the Stone Frog is 80 pages long, making it graphic novel length. For their first graphic novel (220 Lexile) they have gone all out. This book is absolutely beautiful from cover
Blog: Children's Book Reviews and Then Some (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Graphic Novel, TOON BOOKS, Reading Level 1, aauthor: Modan, Add a tag
Maya Makes a Mess by Rutu Modan is my favorite new TOON Book. Honestly, though, every new book that TOON publishes is my favorite. However, Maya Makes a Mess has one of my all-time favorite things in it - spaghetti. The colophon has all the production notes printed on a giant pasta pot overflowing with spaghetti, à la Curious George and his kitchen job. From this pot, a tangle of pasta makes
Blog: Picture Book Junkies (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: rutu modan, messy, maya makes a mess, contest, comic, candlewick press, toon books, Add a tag
Later this month, Toon Books releases the above easy-to-read comic reader Maya Makes a Mess. Written and illustrated by Rutu Modan, this is something I would have loved to read as an emerging reader.
I love this dynamic spread (and that flowing line of spaghetti!) Rutu Modan is masterful at capturing so many big expressions with spare lines and flat color.
Pop on over to the Maya Makes a Mess Messy Eater contest page for a chance to win your own copy. Just submit a picture of YOUR messy eater. That's my messy little one, on a typical morning I might add - I think Maya would approve of her methods.
Blog: A Fuse #8 Production (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Uncategorized, Peter H. Reynolds, Laura Amy Schlitz, Candlewick, TOON Books, Doreen Rappaport, Scott Nash, David Ezra Stein, Jon Klassen, Leslea Newman, James Howe, Chris Raschka, Sean Beaudoin, Rutu Modan, librarian previews, Gary Ross, Gigi Amateau, Frank Viva, David Nytra, E.M. Kokie, Fall 2012 previews, Add a tag
You’ve got your big-time fancy pants New York publishers on the one hand, and then you have your big-time fancy pants Boston publishers on the other. A perusal of Minders of Make-Believe by Leonard Marcus provides a pretty good explanation for why Boston is, in its way, a small children’s book enclave of its own. Within its borders you have publishers like Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Candlewick holding court. The only time I have ever been to Boston was when ALA last had a convention there. It was nice, though cold and there are duckling statues.
So it was that the good people of Candlewick came to New York to show off some of their finest Fall 2012 wares. Now the last time they came here they were hosted by SLJ. This time they secured space in the Bank Street College of Education. Better location, less good food (no cookies, but then I have the nutritional demands of a five-year-old child). We were given little signs on which to write our names. I took an extra long time on mine for what I can only assume was an attempt to “win” the write-your-name part of the day. After that, we were off!
First up, it’s our old friend and Caldecott Honor winner (I bet that never gets old for him) David Ezra Stein. The fellow’s been toiling away with his paints n’ such for years, so it’s little wonder he wanted to ratchet up his style a notch with something different. And “something different” is a pretty good explanation of what you’ll find with Because Amelia Smiled. This is sort of a take on the old nursery rhyme that talks about “For Want of a Nail”, except with a happy pay-it-forward kind of spin. Because a little girl smiles a woman remembers to send a care package. Because the care package is received someone else does something good. You get the picture. Stein actually wrote this book as a Senior in art school but has only gotten to writing it officially now. It’s sort of the literary opposite of Russell Hoban’s A Sorely Trying Day or Barbara Bottner’s An Annoying ABC. As for the art itself, the author/illustrator has created a whole new form which he’s named Stein-lining. To create it you must apply crayons to wax paper and then turn it over. I don’t quite get the logistics but I’ll be interested in seeing the results. Finally, the book continues the massive trend of naming girls in works of children’s fiction “Amelia”. Between Amelia Bedelia, Amelia’s Notebook, and Amelia Rules I think the children’s literary populace is well-stocked in Amelias ah-plenty.
Next up, a title that may well earn the moniker of Most Anticipated Picture Book of the Fall 2012 Season. This Is Not My Hat isn’t a sequel to 4 Comments on Librarian Preview: Candlewick Press (Fall 2012), last added: 4/25/2012
Blog: Children's Illustration (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: R. Kikuo Johnson, TOON Books, Add a tag
Blog: Children's Book Reviews and Then Some (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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TOON Books has done it again, maybe even giving Elephant and Piggie a bit of (much needed) competition. I mean, there is room for two more slightly subversive buddies in the world of emerging reader books, right? Chick & Chickie: Play All Day introduces us to the French author and illustrator of over sixty children's books Claude Ponti. As much as I love Mo Willems and what he has done for the
Blog: Children's Book Reviews and Then Some (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Graphic Novel, TOON BOOKS, Mythology and Folklore, Reading Level 1.5, aauthor: Johnson, Add a tag
When I write a review, I try to be professional and refrain from gushing, but sometimes a book is so spectacular that I can't help myself. The Shark King by R Kikuo Johnson, the newest title from TOON Books is one of those. The Shark King, which I hope might become a series, has action, adventure, mythology, exotic (to me) locales, and a playfully curious, brave protagonist in Nanaue (pronounced
Blog: DRAWN! (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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More great artists making more great books for kids? I’m all for it! This upcoming book from R. Kikuo Johnson looks fabulous!
More sneak previews from R. Kikuo Johnson’s Shark King, coming out from TOON books this April.
Blog: Children's Illustration (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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There are three types of dung beetles! Thanks to ZIG AND WIKKI in THE COW I now know this along with many other facts about dung, soil, and cow patties. (My kind of science lesson!) The duo from outer-space, once again, explore Earth in all its exotic splendor.
Want to read the first Zig and Wikki adventure? See it HERE!
Thank you to Leigh Stein.
Blog: Children's Book Reviews and Then Some (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Graphic Novel, Beginning Readers, TOON BOOKS, Add a tag
LEVEL 1 :200 - 300 Easy Sight Words, Short SentencesOften One Character, Single Time Frame or Theme, 1 -2 Panels per Page I realize that I am often going on about the lack of high quality, beginning to read books that have appealing content both visually and texturally, and believe me, every title published by TOON Books meets all my criteria for a great beginning reader book, but really, above
Blog: Children's Illustration (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: technology, TOON Books, Add a tag
Blog: Children's Illustration (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: TOON Books, Nadja Spiegelman, Trade Loeffler, Add a tag
Online Toon Readers:
Flip virtual pages and listen to the story (in multiple languages, including Spanish, French, Chinese and Russian), or activate the audio on individual balloons.
And Coming April 2010 -- Toon Books' first release to incorporate science, Zig and Wikki: Something Ate My Homework. Fun facts about flies, frogs, and raccoons from Nadja Spiegelman and Trade Loeffler.
Blog: Eric Orchard (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Blog: Children's Illustration (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Chicago area events:
Saturday, July 11th
Magic Tree Bookstore
11 AM - Noon
141 North Oak Park Avenue
Oak Park, IL 60301
Oak Park Library
1 PM
834 Lake Street
Oak Park, IL 60301
-----------------------------
Monday, July 13th
ALA Annual Convention
1:30 PM Baker and Taylor Booth #3620
The Convention Center at McCormick Place West
Blog: How To Be A Children's Book Illustrator (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: News, American Library Association, David Sedaris, Jules Feiffer, Raw, Toon Books, Pictures worth a thousand words, Art Spiegelman, Eleanor Davis, Françoise Mouly, Geoffrey Hayes, Benny and Penny, "Maus", "Seven IMpossible Things Before Breakfast, "Stinky", Gahan Wilson, Maurice Sendark, Savannah College of Art and Design, Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book, Classics Illustrated Comic Books, Add a tag
“Graphic novels” for little bitty kids?
Comics for children age four and up?
Not such a preposterous idea. The intuitive narrative form of comics is a whole another kind of reading.
Searching words, pictures and panels for clues to events big and small in a story is a more active experience than watching video on a screen.
My “great books” education came from Classics Illustrated comics, which I loved. Did they ruin my appetite for dinner?
Heck no, I read plenty of real classics later. My readings of the actual Men Against the Sea, The Dark Frigate, King Solomon’s Mines, Frankenstein, David Copperfield, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and so many more were only enhanced by my first reading their comic book counterparts.
(In many cases the comics reading was a richer experience than plowing through the actual classic texts. Maybe that says more about me than any literary works. However that’s a story for another post.)
Thank you, Albert Kanter for the great contribution you made to kid culture with the Classic Illustrated series that ran for 30 years beginning in 1941.
On that note, Toon Books, produced by Raw Junior, LLC , endeavors to make comics readers of toddlers and tots.
And who better to tease little ones with artful pictures and graphics into an early habit of reading than, well, another comic book publisher.
And, in this case, someone who is also a New Yorker magazine art director.
Françoise Mouly is a veteran of more than 800 New Yorker covers, a mom, and the co-founder and co-editor, with her husband cartoonist Art Spiegelman, of the avant garde comics anthology Raw Graphics. That’s where Spiegelman’s family account of the Holocaust, Maus, A Survivor’s Tale, that later won the Pulitzer Prize, first appeared. It was the first comic book to call itself a graphic novel .
Mouly also designed and edited books for Pantheon and Penguin in the late 1980’s and early 1990s. She was helping her first grade son with his reading. she discovered — to her dismay — “beginner reader” texts.
She substituted for their home reading sessions her giant collection of French comic books, and that worked like a charm. It got her thinking, and in 2000 she launched the RAW Junior division to publish “literary comics” for kids of all ages.
She enlisted star writers, artists and cartoonists such as Maurice Sendak, David Sedaris, Jules Feiffer and Gahan Wilson.
In 2008 she started the Toon Books imprint. These were 6″ by 9″ hard cover “comics” that very young children could read on their own.
“Comics have always had a unique ability to draw young readers into a story through the drawings,” Mouly told an interviewer. “Visual narrative helps kids crack the code that allows literacy to flourish, teaching them how to read from left to right, from top to bottom.”
“Comics use a broad range of sophisticated devices for communication,” the Toon Books website quotes Barbara Tversky, professor of Psychology at Stanford University and a Toon Books advisor.
“They are similar to face-to-face interactions, in which meaning is derived not solely from words, but also from gestures, intonation, facial expressions and props,” Tversky says. “Comics are more than just illustrated books, but rather make use of a multi-modal language that blends words, pictures, facial expressions, panel-to-panel progression, color, sound effects and more to engage readers in a compelling narrative.”
I like the Benny and Penny series by author illustrator Geoffrey Hayes, about sibling mice — a big brother and his little sister and do they ever ring true! In the latest title, The Big No-No, released this Spring, Benny and Penny confront the “new kid” next door.
In Just Pretend, Penny threatens to disrupt Benny’s make believe pirate game (because she needs a hug). But they somehow manage to play together. When Penny momentarily disappears in a game of hide and seek, Benny decides that pretending is better with his sister around than not.
Hayes has written and illustrated about 40 books, including early readers and a Margaret Wise Brown title, When the Wind Blew.
The Big No-No and Just Pretend are gently rendered in colored pencil and beautifully orchestrated and paced. The pages are a joy to experience. The little dialogue balloons are so natural and unobtrusive. The books give you the feeling that you’re eavesdropping on the real conversations of real children.
You can read a fascinating interview with Hayes on the Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog.
I haven’t yet seen Stinky about a polka-dotted swamp monster whose turf gets invaded by a little boy. It’s creator is a 25 year old rising comics star Eleanor Davis, a recent graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design. The American Library Association named Stinky its Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book for this year.
* * * * *
Mark Mitchell hosts “How To Be A Children’s Book Illustrator.” To sample some free lessons from his online course on children’s book illustration, go here.
Blog: How To Be A Children's Book Illustrator (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: News, American Library Association, David Sedaris, Jules Feiffer, Pictures worth a thousand words, Art Spiegelman, Eleanor Davis, Françoise Mouly, Geoffrey Hayes, Benny and Penny, "Maus", "Seven IMpossible Things Before Breakfast, "Stinky", Classics Illustrated Comic Books. Raw, Gahan Wilson, Maurice Sendark, Savannah College of Art and Design, Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book, Toon Books, Add a tag
“Graphic novels” for little bitty kids?
Comics for children age four and up?
Not such a preposterous idea. The intuitive narrative form of comics is a whole another kind of reading: Searching panels and pictures along with words for clues to events big and small in the story is an immersion narrative experience. It’s more active than watching video on a screen.
My “great books” education came from Classics Illustrated comics, which I loved. Did they ruin my appetite for dinner?
Heck no, I read plenty of real classics later. My readings of the actual Men Against the Sea, The Dark Frigate, King Solomon’s Mines, Frankenstein, David Copperfield, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and so many more were only enhanced by my first reading their comic book counterparts.
(In many cases the comics reading was a richer experience than plowing through the actual classic texts. Maybe that says more about me than any literary works. However that’s a story for another post.)
Thank you, Albert Kanter for the great contribution you made to kid culture with the Classic Illustrated series that ran for 30 years beginning in 1941.
On that note, Toon Books, produced by Raw Junior, LLC , endeavors to make comics readers of toddlers and tots.
And who better to tease little ones with artful pictures and graphics into an early habit of reading than, well, another comic book publisher.
Or more precisely a comics publisher/New Yorker magazine art director.
Françoise Mouly is a veteran of more than 800 New Yorker covers, a mom, and the co-founder and co-editor, with her husband cartoonist Art Spiegelman, of the avant garde comics anthology Raw Graphics. That’s where Spiegelman’s family account of the Holocaust, Maus, A Survivor’s Tale, that later won the Pulitzer Prize, first appeared. It was the first comic book to call itself a graphic novel .
Mouly also designed and edited books for Pantheon and Penguin in the late 1980’s and early 1990s. She was helping her first grade son with his reading. she discovered — to her dismay — “beginner reader” texts.
She substituted for their home reading sessions her giant collection of French comic books, and that worked like a charm. It got her thinking, and in 2000 she launched the RAW Junior division to publish “literary comics” for kids of all ages.
She enlisted star writers, artists and cartoonists such as Maurice Sendak, David Sedaris, Jules Feiffer and Gahan Wilson.
In 2008 she started the Toon Books imprint. These were 6″ by 9″ hard cover “comics” that very young children could read on their own.
“Comics have always had a unique ability to draw young readers into a story through the drawings,” Mouly told an interviewer. “Visual narrative helps kids crack the code that allows literacy to flourish, teaching them how to read from left to right, from top to bottom.”
“Comics use a broad range of sophisticated devices for communication,” the Toon Books website quotes Barbara Tversky, professor of Psychology at Stanford University and a Toon Books advisor.
“They are similar to face-to-face interactions, in which meaning is derived not solely from words, but also from gestures, intonation, facial expressions and props,” Tversky says. “Comics are more than just illustrated books, but rather make use of a multi-modal language that blends words, pictures, facial expressions, panel-to-panel progression, color, sound effects and more to engage readers in a compelling narrative.”
I like the Benny and Penny series by author illustrator Geoffrey Hayes, about sibling mice — a big brother and his little sister and do they ever ring true! In the latest title, The Big No-No, released this Spring, Benny and Penny confront the “new kid” next door.
In Just Pretend, Penny threatens to disrupt Benny’s make believe pirate game (because she needs a hug). But they somehow manage to play together. When Penny momentarily disappears in a game of hide and seek, Benny decides that pretending is better with his sister around than not.
Hayes has written and illustrated about 40 books, including early readers and a Margaret Wise Brown title, When the Wind Blew. The Big No-No and Just Pretend are gently rendered in colored pencil and beautifully orchestrated and paced. The pages are a joy to experience. The little dialogue balloons are so natural and unobtrusive. The books give you the feeling that you’re eavesdropping on the real conversations of real children.
You can read a fascinating interview with Hayes on the Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog.
I haven’t yet seen Stinky about a polka-dotted swamp monster whose turf gets invaded by a little boy. It’s creator is a 25 year old rising comics star Eleanor Davis, a recent graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design. The American Library Association named Stinky its Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book for this year.
* * * * *
Mark Mitchell hosts “How To Be A Children’s Book Illustrator.” To sample some free lessons from his online course on children’s book illustration, go here.
Blog: Children's Illustration (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: TOON Books, Geoffrey Hayes, Add a tag
Saturday, April 25, 2009—NEW YORK CITY
2:00-2:30pm-- Staged Reading at Kids ComicCon
Bronx Community College, 2155 University Boulevard
Saturday, May 9, 2009—NEW YORK CITY
2:20 PM-- Children’s Book Week Kick-Off Events
Bryant Park, Fifth Avenue & 42nd Street
Tuesday, May 12, 2009—New York City
4:00 PM-- Storytime
Barnes and Noble Tribeca, 97 Warren Street
Blog: The Written Nerd (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: comics, Toon Books, Dean Koontz, The Handsell, Scott Pilgrim, Bryan Lee O'Malley, David B, Dan Goldman, Add a tag
As promised, I'm catching up on reviewing some of the many comics I seem to have been reading lately. This will be Handsell style: just a quick description/pitch.
A note on linking: I'm trying something new. I'm using my own images and linking them directly to the IndieBound book info page, rather than using the affiliate links, which require an extra several clicks before you get to the book. It takes a bit longer for me, but seems more likely to be click-through-friendly for you. Let me know what you think.
Miss Don't Touch Me
by Hubert & Kerascoet
(NBM/ComicsLit)
This graphic novel is a study in contradictions: it combines a somewhat lighthearted tone - "prudish girl finds herself working in a high-end whorehouse, bring on the sex comedy!" - with some rather grisly plot points, including some pretty dark perversions and more than one bloody murder. The very French drawing style -- quick and flowing, almost sketchy, a la Joann Sfar of The Rabbi's Cat -- contributes to this strangeness. It's a grippingly suspenseful plot and the characters and images are very well-done and sometimes even sexy, but I'd suggest it only to readers with strong stomachs and a high tolerance for cognitive dissonance.
Luke on the Loose
by Harry Bliss
(Toon Books)
This is my favorite of the latest season's offerings from Toon Books, the comics-as-early-readers line created by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly. The plot and dialogue are intended for early primary kids: Luke, while on a walk with his dad, gets interested in chasing some pigeons and rampages across New York City like a hurricane -- but grownups will enjoy reading along for the fun of recognizing both many NYC landmarks and scenes and the unstoppable energy of a small boy. Harry Bliss, a Brooklyn native, brings this episodic tale to life with kinetic drawings perfect for the target age group, who will likely see themselves in Luke's exuberant flight.
08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail
by Michael Crowley and Dan Goldman
(Three Rivers Press)
Admit it: you kind of miss the never-ending drama of campaign season. This unique work manages to recapture the suspense and comedy and nobility and absurdity of it all, even though we know how it all comes out. Goldman, co-author of the Iraq/media/blogging satire Shooting War, is no stranger to capturing political realities and metaphors. Through the personae of two reporters who have seen it all, he and Crowley let you relive the political year moment by moment, and use the graphic novel format to get across the non-verbal subtleties as well as the rhetoric (every line of dialogue spoken by a candidate or other figure in the book is from their actual recorded words). Highly recommended for political junkies and those interested in what this medium can do with recent history.
Frankenstein: Prodigal Son 1
by Dean Koontz, Chuck Dixon, and Brett Booth
(Del Rey)
This book for me is that rare challenge: a negative handsell. I found the dialogue unintentionally laughable and the art cliched -- in fact, what amused me most about the book is that while the plot involves a still-alive Frankenstein creating an army of creepily perfect artificial people, it was impossible to tell his creations from anyone else in the story, as EVERYONE is creepily perfect, in a boring superhero comic kind of way. However, the plot kept me reading (against my better judgement) through the end of this installment, and the newly imagined Frankenstein's monster is kinda sexy. I suspect I'm just not the target audience for this sort of thing -- at ComicCon the folks behind this book touted it as a way to bring Koontz's work to teen readers, and it might work for teens. I'd sell it to those who were interested in Buffy or Twilight-style melodrama, with the caveat that there's much better work out there.
Scott Pilgrim #5: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe!
by Bryan Lee O'Malley
(Oni Press)
This is it! The big book of ComicCon 2009! So popular that you can't find it in stores! The penultimate book in O'Malley's manga/kung fu/video game/slacker culture/coming-of-age masterpiece! Could it possibly live up to the hype? Well, yes actually. Scott Pilgrim, still working through his quest to defeat the seven evil ex-boyfriends of the mysterious Ramona Flowers, is becoming a character of more depth and maturity, and the story is beginning to focus more on the limitations of a battle fighting, rock and roll playing, partygoing approach to solving the real problems of love, friendship, identity, and one's place in the world. Because it's the second to last, this one ends on an Empire Strikes Back-level cliffhanger, which means I will be in agony for the next two years or whatever it takes O'Malley to bring out number 6. But I can always go back and read 1 to 5 in the meantime, reveling in the layers of humor and visual motifs and hints about the outcome that the work provides in spades. I'd recommend you do the same, if you are the kind of person who likes fun, especially when it gets serious. Seriously, please just buy (or reserve) #1 at your local indie bookstore or comic shop as soon as possible and begin the Scott Pilgrim adventure.
Nocturnal Conspiracies
by David B.
(NBM/ComicsLit)
David B. is one of the stars of the very sophisticated French comics scene; his memoir Epileptic was a bestseller and highly acclaimed here in the States. I'm still reading my way slowly through this rich, eerie, atmospheric and thoroughly enjoyable book, a compendium of some of the author's own dreams over a period of decades. It's a kind of counterpoint to another recent favorite, The Night Of Your Life by Jesse Reklaw; while Reklaw compresses other people's dreams into four surreally humorous panels, David B traces his own dreams at length through their irresistible desires, pressing demands, and French Resistance-influenced atmospherics and drama. I found each meandering episode both deja vu familiar and utterly other, as other people's dreams often are. The combination of words and pictures seems like the perfect -- maybe only -- way to convey both the visual nature of dreams and the fact that our understanding of a dream situation goes beyond what we can see (the "it was you, but it didn't look like you" phenomenon). Another example of the best of what's going on in the genre -- some nudity and dream violence make it unsuitable for the youngest readers, but for all others it's definitely recommended.
Blog: Children's Illustration (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: TOON Books, Harry Bliss, Eleanor Davis, Geoffrey Hayes, Add a tag
Congratulations to Eleanor Davis on receiving a Geisel Honor (Theodor Seuss Geisel Award) for an outstanding book for beginning readers.
The nice people at Toon Books have sent me two more books -- LUKE ON THE LOOSE by Harry Bliss, and THE BIG NO-NO! by Geoffrey Hayes, and I enjoyed them both.
THE BIG NO-NO! is plenty cute, but with enough action, mud, mystery, and calamity to entertain any kid.
(above illustration is of Penny from THE BIG NO-NO!)
Blog: Children's Illustration (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: graphic novel, education, thanks Fuse, Francoise Mouly, TOON Books, we love Word balloons, The importance of facial expression and gesture, thanks Fuse, Art Speigelman, The importance of facial expression and gesture, we love Word balloons, Francoise Mouly, TOON Books, comics, Art Speigelman, Add a tag
Blog: SCBWI Gauteng (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Illustrating Children's Books, Illustrators, Promoting Children's Books, Rankin. Joan, Hardy. LeAnne, Grobler. Piet, Bouma. Paddy, Cape Town Book Fair, de Beer. Yvette, van Heerden. Marjorie, Illustrators, Piet Grobler, Paddy Bouma, Joan Rankin, Marjorie van Heerden, LeAnne Hardy, Illustrating Children's Books, Cape Town Book Fair, Promoting Children's Books, Yvette de Beer, Add a tag
SCBWI had a stand at the Cape Town Book Fair where members of SCBWI displayed examples of their work.
LeAnne Hardy from Jo'burg was one writer who took advantage of the opportunity to display her books. Other authors included Wendy Hartman and Reviva Schermbrucker.
Illustrators also displayed their books as well as examples of their work. Gauteng illustrators whose work was on display included Joan Rankin and Yvette de Beer. Other illustrators who displayed their work included Marjorie van Heerden and Paddy Bouma.
The stand was very busy throughout the fair. Many people went through portfolios and looked at the books published by SCBWI members. They took down names of writers and illustrators whose work they could commission. A popular attraction were the beautiful posters for sale. These were done by renowned artists such as Piet Grobler and were snapped up by eager teachers and librarians.
The SCBWI stand was next to the IBBY stand which displayed some wonderful examples of South African books. A large number of exciting children's events were also organised.
All in all, children's books were prominent at the Cape Town Book Fair.
a new one! SQUEEEEE!
I know!! I hope these little mice never grow up and that Hayes never gets tired of them...
Your review makes me want to give these books another try. My kids brought home Benny and Penny and the Big No-No from the library and I wasn't crazy about it. But I think it may mostly have been the gender stereotyping the characters do at the beginning when discussing whether it is better if the new neighbor is a boy or a girl. But my kids liked the book so I'll look out for this one