If you’re looking for picture books exploring friendships of massive proportions, then these two latest delights are for you. Perfect for melting any sized heart! Blue Whale Blues, Peter Carnavas (author, illus.), New Frontier Publishing, 2015. On first glance, I noticed something different about Peter Carnavas‘ most recent creation compared to his previous works. […]
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Blog: Perpetually Adolescent (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: As Big As You, Blue Whale Blues, Book News, friendship, relationships, collage, elephant, whale, optimism, problem solving, New Frontier Publishing, New Book Releases, Size, Peter Carnavas, Scholastic Press Australia, Sara Acton, Book Reviews - Childrens and Young Adult, Romi Sharp, Add a tag
Blog: Design of the Picture Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: color, trailers, composition, color palette, pixar, shape, size, disney-hyperion, disney animation, case cover, mike wu, Add a tag
by Mike Wu (Disney Hyperion, 2015)
Before anything else, this (full screen!):
Ellie’s endpapers start us off like this: long and lonely and barren.
There she is, a little hint of her. And if you want another one, take the dust jacket off to reveal the case cover.
We learn quickly why the zoo was so sullen and gray. Because the story happened visually, to start, we don’t need to linger in introductions and routines and the way of this world.
We know.
Home.
Hope.
Ellie, and a hint again, carrying something with her trunk, wishing and wanting to help.
But a small elephant isn’t a tall giraffe or a burly gorilla.
She’s just Ellie.
But in that curlicue grip, that same hope.
Does she see it? Do you?
Linked by color and purpose and quite possibly definition, this happens next:
Does she notice? I don’t know. I’d like to think she did.
Watching and waiting, a wise little elephant.
This is the first spread without Ellie in it, without her sweet, sad eyes.
But now we get to see through them, and I’d bet a reader’s eyes do the same awe-pop that hers must be doing right now. That’s something I’m sure is true.
Turns out, Ellie found her thing.
And here’s where I’d recommend finding a copy of this yourself, because the final spreads are something you should see and feel through your own eyes. But be sure to notice the back endpapers and their stark difference to the front. The progress is literally told in colors.
This book is rectangular, and so open, it’s an expanse. That trim size gives the zoo a little room to breathe, to extend, to become the physicality of Ellie’s journey. There’s space in that shape, space in the story.
Mike Wu’s film background (did you notice the zookeeper’s name?) may have influenced that trim size. What we call trim size they call aspect ratio, and aspect ratios in film are far from the standard definition of once upon a time.
Maybe? I don’t know. But I’d guarantee a visual storyteller thinks of those things, and it’s for us to appreciate, to wonder about, and to call beautiful.
I received a review copy of Ellie directly from the author, but all opinions are my own.
Add a CommentBlog: Perpetually Adolescent (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: acceptance, Viking, Penguin, perspective, Jane Godwin, Andrew Joyner, New Book Releases, proportion, Size, philosophical, Book Reviews - Childrens and Young Adult, Romi Sharp, How Big is Too Small?, Book News, Add a tag
How Big is Too Small?, Jane Godwin (author), Andrew Joyner (illus.), Penguin, 2015. Can size hold you back? Can size determine your value? Everyone and everything, from the miniscule to the enormous, has a place in this world. We all have important jobs to do. But Sam wonders – “How big is too small?” […]
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JacketFlap tags: scale, composition, movement, perspective, layout, Phaidon, size, Uncategorized, point of view, voice, Add a tag
by Stella Gurney and Natsko Seki (Phaidon, 2013)
Do kids’ books have room for one more smart pigeon? You’ll be glad you let this one in, because Speck Lee Tailfeather is another flier with a healthy confidence and a chatty nature.
Speck’s mission is world travel, focusing on buildings from a bird’s point of view. He sees things differently.
His words are a travel journal of sorts to his pigeon friends. To his love, Elsie. And to us.
There’s a lot to look at, from speech bubbles to side bars to fascinating tidbits. The layout and voice are both unusual in the very best way. And if you just shake off what you expect from picture books and settle in, your flight from city to sky and back will be worth it.
Your tour guide, after all, is an expert in the unusual.
This one is for treasure hunters, trivia fanatics, architecture buffs, or anyone hungry for some off-the-wall-pigeon-fare. You never know.
Pair it with A Lion in Paris. Speck travels farther than France, but matching up the Parisian buildings (not to mention the books’ head-to-head size battle and their animal points of view) would be a fun thing for storytime.
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JacketFlap tags: scale, composition, ruth krauss, perspective, color palette, margot tomes, size, Add a tag
by Ruth Krauss and Margot Tomes (Four Winds Press, 1973)
I’m not a real wild-and-crazy kind of person.
Last Saturday I took a Pilates class at 3:30, and the teacher said it’s always such a weird time because most people like to spend their afternoons at the beach or the ballpark. Or perhaps they have to get ready for their evening cocktail hour, and finishing close to 5:00 doesn’t work. But I told her that it’s my favorite time, because then I can be home in pajamas having sort-of-flat champagne before it’s even dark out.
She looked at me funny.
But on some of those pajamas and champagne Saturday nights, I go vintage book shopping online and find things like this.
I love this book.
I love Ruth Krauss.
I love the way her words describe the bizarre and complex world of kids’ heads. And their perfectly simple and sensible world. It’s kind of all wrapped up together for kids anyway, which is strange and endearing and other-worldly.
Each spread has one line, a bright orange to the illustrations’ muted browns. The only other color is the blue on the cover.
And the page turn acts as a sort of puzzle: the last bit from the page before starts the new thought.
Each thing is little. Each thing snuggles up right under the towering mushroom. Each thing is so firmly kid.
The tiny stories ramble on underneath, in those playful monologues that might seem like nonsense. This is where kids are experts.
Grownups, consider this. You might not understand. You might not have any use for a little potato. But, as the girl with the bow in her hair promises, “Little potatoes are especially nice.”
It’s weird. It’s wonderful. And if it fits under a mushroom, it’s fair game.
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Blog: Design of the Picture Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: balance, scale, size, Add a tag
by Beatrice Alemagna (Tate, 2014)
First of all. This book opens the wrong way. I mean, it’s completely right, but it is unusual in all of the most wonderful ways.
Also, it’s huge. It’s the size of a cookie sheet or a throw pillow, which is also unusual in all of the most wonderful ways.
After all, how else can you contain a lion?
He was a big lion. A young, curious and lonely lion. He was bored at home on the grasslands, and so one day he set off to find a job, love and a future.
This is such a perfect picture book setup. We meet our leading man and instantly understand what’s he like and what he wants. Succint, confident, and interesting in both visuals and voice.
Something about the massive white space for the text and the intricate illustrations on opposing sides of the gutter. It’s cinematic almost–reminiscient of that silent movie era where a title card precedes the action. The frame on each side of the gutter even approximates the golden rectangle of today’s high definition aspect ratio.
They are pleasing boundaries for storytelling. The pictures don’t need to leave physical layout space for the text, and the text gets a chance to stand alone and confident as well.
The people were hurrying around with a strange kind of sword under their arms, but nobody thought of attacking him. That surprised him.
When he went out into the street, it started to rain. That made him think of his lovely sunny grasslands and he felt sad. He turned all grey and shiny like the roofs around him.
So off course, things will get strange and sad for our gentle giant before his journey is through. But isn’t that true of many lionhearted luminaries?
This is a book for anyone who wrinkles a forehead and grins a little at smart design. It’s also a book for anyone who feels a little lost, a little rainy, a little roar-y.
It’s for anyone who is looking for that perfect place to be still and happy.
PS: Tate is a British publisher, not to be confused with the notorious scam-ish publisher in America of the same name.
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JacketFlap tags: design, color, early readers, concept, board books, composition, shape, size, home grown books, Add a tag
by Cecile Dyer and Kyla Ryman (Home Grown Books, 2014)
I’ve written before about how I’m a sucker for board books, but this new-to-me publisher has raised the board book bar. These books are both meaningful and beautiful, which is a touch balance to strike in a book so seemingly simple. This one, Dress Up, shows a series of cats with killer expressions donning all sorts of odds and ends. A fancy cat fastens a bow to one side, a dapper cat sports a vest. Mask! Scarf! Glasses! Cats with style, for sure.
This board book is a second edition reprint, because it originally showed up in teensy paperback form as part of a 9-book Little Reader series, The Play Book Set.
See Dress Up up there with the orange cover? The insides are similar, but the pictures are bordered with white space holding the words.
Nothing in these books is too cutesy, too precious, or too simple. The art is sophisticated, accessible, and challenges a little brain’s wonderings.
Kids need good art, and Home Grown Books is doing a bang up job fitting that bill. (Plus, any sax-playing hen is fine by me.)
Clever packaging includes tips on how to read with the bittiest in your family. Talk about the pictures! Make connections! Everyday concepts meet rich art. It’s a lovely thing.
Eco-friendly and recycled paper to boot! Lots to love about these new books on the block. Find a babe, stat.
Here’s illustrator Cecile Dyer talking about watching the world, interacting with young readers and artists, and of course, these these tiny, book-shaped treasures.
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Blog: Design of the Picture Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: color, space, composition, color theory, color palette, shape, size, helen stephens, complementary colors, how to hide a lion, Add a tag
How to Hide a Lion (Henry Holt, 2013. Originally published 2012 in the UK.)
One hot day, a lion strolled into town to buy a hat.
Of course he did. That frilly blue thing in the window is pretty fancy after all. This beast only has eyes for that bonnet, and bypassed the bakery without even a side eye. But while the beast has eyes for the bonnet, the townspeople have eyes for safety and decorum. They chase him out.
And like any smart wild animal, he finds refuge in a kid. A kid who was not scared of him in the least. A kid who saw a problem that needed solving. A kid who saw her world differently. She knows he needs hiding, and I think that’s such a beautiful example of what it must be like to be a kid. You have this vague awareness of things that are problems for grownups, and yet you attack them as if those grownups are absurd.
That’s kid truth. That’s a great thing for this lion.
There’s smushing behind the shower curtain, there’s lounging on the limb of a tree, and there’s plenty of bed-jumping. And still, when he overhears Iris’s parents saying there’s no such thing as a kind lion, there’s sadness.
But.
The way Helen Stephens is using color in this book is both sweet and striking to me. This lion, large and yellow, takes up a lot of space on pages of close ups. And his girl, Iris, matches him a bit with her yellow arms and brown mane. That’s sweet. That’s friends who can see themselves in each other.
But the blues. Loose complements to the wild yellow of the beast, the wild brown of Iris’s hair. Ever notice when a book is cracked open, the edges of the cover frame it a bit? This one is blue, a lovely turquoise. The endpapers are a shade of sky and a deep navy. Those pages and that cover peek around the story itself.
A little touch of blue, giving this lion a hug.
These vignettes! The gag is a an unhide-able lion, right? It’s an impossibility that’s highlighted with the use of these orange-yellows and blues.
After the lion escapes his Iris-refuge, he blends in to his surroundings. A camouflaged cat, if you will. He holds his breath between two marble-sculpted friends. I don’t want to show you the spread, cause Big Things Happen, but take a look at the colors of that page. His hiding is a success. No need for blues to offset his presence.
Also, I love how this book is pretty big. That’s obviously not a very technical or artistic term to to reference trim size, but it’s true. A lion is tricky to hide, and the physical space this book takes up is the gentlest nod to the absurdity of that task. Besides, a lion wouldn’t fit in a smaller book, right?
He’d be much harder to hide that way.
PS: Be sure to visit this post from Danielle at This Picture Book Life. There’s some secret-spoiler-y-easter-egg things on the pages of this book, and her post is the coolest.
Tagged: color, color theory, complementary colors, helen stephens, how to hide a lion, shape, size Add a Comment
Blog: Design of the Picture Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: color, concept, rhythm, jutta bauer, color theory, color palette, line, size, north south, Add a tag
by Jutta Bauer (NorthSouth, 2014; originally published in Germany, 1998, as Die Königen der Farben.)
I love the work NorthSouth is doing, and this book in particular has stuck with me for a while.So it’s a funny little book, but it’s also literally little, and there’s a lot of mayhem happening in such a small package. I think that’s smart.Color’s been on the brain a lot this week because I’m in the thick of teaching an Intro to Photoshop and Graphic Design class to kids. This has been a fun one to show them, because the colors in this book take on such a clear identity.Blue is soft and gentle. I love how the Queen is giving it a hug and kiss. Red barrels in and nearly knocks her over. It’s wild and dangerous.And then there’s Yellow. Warm and bright and sunshiny on her toes.
These colors have purpose, but when Matilda can’t control them, the whole mess turns Gray. It’s the same in art. Too many colors competing leaves you a whole lot of buzz and confusion. It doesn’t work.(image source.)
This Gray sticks around for a while. It doesn’t work. But it does make the Queen of Colors sad. Not gentle, not wild, not warm. Not colorful.
So she cries. You’ll have to see for yourself what her tears do to the gray. Here’s a hint: it’s scribbles and stars and swirls. It’s a happy ending.
Color has a story, and it’s a story that matters.
P.S.—Does Queen Matilda remind you a little bit of Queen Ursula from the Little Mermaid? I think it’s part her bossiness, and part her curves. I’m awful at remembering lines from films, but this is one that has stayed with me a long, long time. I think it’s thanks to the bubbles that shimmy out of her hind parts!
Tagged: color, color theory, jutta bauer, north south Add a Comment
Blog: Design of the Picture Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: color, space, balance, color theory, color palette, line, Phaidon, shape, white space, Jean-Jacques Sempé, size, contrast, Martin Pebble, Add a tag
Martin Pebble (Phaidon, 2006; first published in French, 1969)
by Jean-Jacques Sempé
I love this book.
I love the type on the cover.
I love the yellow.
I love the shape and the size and the story.
I love Martin Pebble.
He’s loveable.
(I picked this up on a recent trip to Once Upon a Time in Montrose, CA, which is exactly why shopping in stores is the greatest thing. I had to touch this thing to believe it, and I might not have seen this thing if it weren’t for the bookseller. Bookstores are like story petting zoos and museums that don’t give you the stinkeye if you get too close to the art.)
(Something like that.)
But poor Martin Pebble.
Martin Pebble could have been a happy little boy, like many other children. But, sad to say . . . he had something that was rather unusual the matter with him:
he kept blushing. Martin Pebble blushes for all the usual reasons and for no reason at all. The brilliance of Sempé’s color here is hard to miss. Black and white line work contains the red of Martin’s face, and that red occasionally extends to the text as well.
Subtle. Striking.The contrast Sempé crafts between Martin’s red face and all that black and white makes that blushing even worse.
Martin is in a pickle. He’s tiny and nearly lost on the page save for his giveaway condition.
He dreamed of fitting in.But he always stood out.Then comes a series of sneezes, some very loud A T I S H O O s, and there he is.
Roddy Rackett, the new neighbor.When the story changes, and the hardships knock at the door, Sempé doesn’t just use the suspense of a page turn. He stops the story cold.Roddy Rackett’s family moves away.
When you are a boy, and when you are made normal in the quirks of another, you never really forget about it. You think about A T I S H O O s while you are doing grownup things like riding taxis and elevators.Sometimes things get back to normal.I won’t spoil past that pink-lettered page.
And!
Sempé himself sounds like a storybook character. He sold tooth powder door-to-door salesman! Delivered wine by bicycle! (More here.)
Click here for some of Sempé’s covers for The New Yorker. Lovely.
And this Pinterest board is a feast for the eyes, too. Enjoy!
Tagged: color, contrast, Jean-Jacques Sempé, line, Martin Pebble, Phaidon, shape, size Add a Comment
Blog: Read Roger - The Horn Book editor's rants and raves (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: pre-K, size, common core, grade 1, Lolly's Classroom, School, Picture Books, math, money, Featured, grade 2, grade 3, Kindergarten, Add a tag
My school uses a play-based approach to teaching math, which is advantageous because as an early childhood teacher, my students still love math and they love to play games. They enjoy learning and working with numbers and I can build on this through math games.
For me, teaching math is often challenging because my own mathematical background emphasized “doing” math over understanding with drills, formulas, and math algorithms rather than reinforcing why we use specific math procedures. Add to this the new Common Core Math Standard’s focus on conceptual understanding, fluency, and application and you get a recipe for highly reflective lesson planning!
One way to bridge this gap between doing and understanding math is with picture books. They provide purposeful ways to ground students intuitive use of math and easily get them using and talking about the most effective strategies.
There are so many wonderful math concept and picture books out there, yet selecting books that effectively support mini lessons and launch play requires a bit more searching. The books need to interest students, embed rather than simply present math concepts, lend themselves well to differentiated extension activities, and of course, be fun!
Some books I’ve successfully used and that meet these criteria are:
I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean — This is a Kevin Sherry’s story about a giant squid who thinks he’s bigger than everything in the ocean. He’s very big, but is he the biggest? This book is great for introducing relative size, comparisons. This is an alternative text for introducing standard measurements as well as scale when students are challenged to rank by size or to think of reliable ways to determine how much bigger he might be than other animals.
Rooster’s Off to See the World — This classic Eric Carle book can help launch math activities about number sets. In the book, Rooster seeks company as he travels around the world. Along the way, he encounters different types of animals and invites them along. The best part of this book is that every time he meets a new animal, the number of them increases. It’s a great way to introduce students to counting in groups and helps students to distinguish between total numbers and sets of numbers. With this book, students played sorting games and counted number sets.
Pigs Will be Pigs — This is the hilarious tale of a family of pigs who need to find enough money to pay for dinner at a restaurant. The author Amy Axelrod wrote this book to teach explicitly about money and she does a fabulous job. I especially love this story because it can also be used across the curriculum. I’m connecting this to a social studies unit on access to healthful food. Grocery store or restaurant math games using coins are natural extension activities with this book.
Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday — Judith Viorst’s Alexander tales normalize my students’ every day experiences and emotions. This one is no different. Alexander has just spent every cent of the money his grandparents gave him. As he recounts how he spent it, students add up how much he spends or can subtract from the initial total. I love this one because a few of the items have prices that some students might find awkward to work with. As with Pigs Will be Pigs, it also lends itself well to cross-curricular connections, especially the basic economic principle of scarcity: Alexander had to learn the hard way about saving versus spending his limited income. For this book, a game to help Alexander save is also a next step for money.
When using picture books to teach math, pre- and post-assessment of student understanding can easily get lost. Talking to students about the math concepts in the books before sending them off to play math extension games can give you a sense of their thinking. For post-assessment, reviewing student work and requiring them to either to write or share out their strategies for success on the games lets them talk about their math knowledge and provides natural entry points for correcting misconceptions or pushing learning.
The post Picture books for launching mathematicians appeared first on The Horn Book.
Blog: Design of the Picture Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: color, space, pattern, color theory, size, flying eye books, design, complementary color scheme, spot color, Add a tag
published 2014 by Flying Eye BooksLet me introduce you to Flying Eye Books, if you aren’t already pals with them. Their books are fairly new to me, but are consistently striking and interesting and a different sort of fare than some more commercial offerings.
Case in point: this post by Danielle Davis over at This Picture Book Life (you know her, right? Her posts are a work of art and always a celebration of the picture book form. I’m lucky to know her in real life, not just on the internet.) and this look at their current season (and an interview!) by Travis Jonker. 100 Bears is a counting book with some actual narrative to it. The pace starts off sweetly but then 9 gunshots and an escape leads to a madhouse of 23 knocked over chairs and 37 or 38 bits of confetti. Such trouble a few bears can get into! Some teensy text flaws swim around in that lost-in-translation sea, but there is some real satisfaction in a circular counting story with 100 moving parts. The smile you’ll get from the first and last pages alone is one of the true joys of story.A design technique shown off so spectacularly here is spot color. That’s when a single color is printed at a time, and so the process gets layered (and tricky!) by rolling down the building blocks of a print on the same lithograph. You won’t see gradients or blended color, just blocks of hue. (Here’s a little more about the process, from author/illustrator Greg Pizzoli.)
And why does the cover catch your eye? It’s more than a circus style balancing act of big old bears and their blocky numbers. It’s that complementary color scheme. Blue and orange. With a splash of pink for some oh, yes.
And so what is this thing? I’m not too sure, and I don’t really care! It’s like a coffee table book for the sippy cup set. Enjoy it, for sure.P.S. – Crazy for spot color? Stay tuned and hear again from the master himself, Greg Pizzoli. Coming up soon on Design of the Picture Book!
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Blog: Design of the Picture Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: design, color, chronicle books, concept, scale, board books, trailers, shape, proportion, size, Édouard Manceau, twirl books, Add a tag
published March 2014 (tomorrow!) by Twirl Books, distributed in America by Chronicle Books
What a treat to give the new Twirl books a whirl! (They are doing something right when a thirtysomething-ed lady squeals over a box of board books, right?)
This one is perfect for grabby hands and curious minds. Check it out in action.
This is a board book that’s been on a steady regimen of spinach and milk. It’s big and beefy. That’s a great thing, because there’s a lot to experience on these pages.
Here’s how it works. The left page shows two seemingly unrelated nouns, loosely connected by a narrative. Sometimes it’s lilting and sometimes a bit labored, but since it’s a translation, all text-clunk is forgiven. Besides, the real treat is in the visual and tactile experience.Swinging a shape or two or three around transforms one picture to another. It’s simultaneously simple and sophisticated. And just plain fun to see and do.Some standard fare lives here: Rabbit, Teapot, Owl. And then there’s Bowl of Salad. Bowl of Salad! Thank goodness for the French. What a delight!I’m teaching an introductory Photoshop and graphic design class this summer. To 3rd – 6th graders. My brain exploded with ideas for projects when I saw this book. You better believe we will be creating our own Presto Change-os!
Stay tuned.Here’s a bit more about Twirl Books.
Review copy provided by the publisher.
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by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Lisa Brown
published 2014 by McSweeney’s/McMullens
Do you know Because of Winn-Dixie? (Have I told you about the time I told Kate DiCamillo I wrote because of Winn-Dixie and obviously meant because of Because of Winn-Dixie but she cackled and my heart soared?)
Anyway. There’s a thing called a Littmus Lozenge. It’s a candy that makes you taste your sorrow and your sad and your sweet, all at once. Maybe it’s the thought of a lozenge sounding like something medicinal, or maybe it’s cause this pharmacy gave me both comfort and the heebie-jeebies, but reading this book felt a little like tasting a Littmus Lozenge.Something unsettling hovers around this place, but it beckons me, too. And I’m not alone in that: those two myth-collectors/busters are at once intrigued and terrified.
It’s weird and charming and confusing and a head-scratcher all at once.
I think that’s exactly what makes it a successful story for kids. Everything doesn’t have to make sense. Offbeat is okay.
Because let’s face it: kid are weird and charming and confusing. They teeter in that fuzzy place between wonder and reality. This is a book that honors this and celebrates that. Is it suspicious, a lady going in and coming out in the same outfit? No. Not necessarily. But see: you are an adult. You are past your prime of delighting in the bizarre and making sense or screwballs out of it. When you read this, rest in it. Let it catapult you from being a grownup. It’s good for you. And then share it with a kid. They’ll get it.Physically, I love the compact trim size because it feels like a manual, like a notebook, like some peculiar pamphlet to some oddball prescription in the pharmacy. It’s like a secret. A hush.Then! The cover unfolds to show the depths of the Swinster Pharmacy. When you flip it over, there’s a map of the town. Don’t ask me why I didn’t show you that. Just trust me. (If you dare.)
P.S. – Another numbered book I loved recently is How to Bicycle to the Moon to Plant Sunflowers, by Mordecai Gerstein. A total must read if you love quirk and lists like me.
The publisher provided a review copy of 29 Myths on the Swinster Pharmacy, but thoughts and love are my own.
Tagged: cover design, lemony snicket, lisa brown, scale, trim size Add a Comment
Blog: Library Goddesses Picture Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: size, making friends, big and little, friendship, rabbits, Add a tag
Squish is just a little rabbit. But being little can lead to big problems. Sometimes Squish is hard to see... which is how he got his name... But Squish notices things- especially when someone is about to get into trouble and needs help...
Also try:
Wish, Change, Friend
Blog: Picture Book Junkies (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: richard scarry, board books, melissa sweet, sandra boynton, mary murphy, david martin, size, Add a tag
I may not be putting pencil to paper for my own book these days, but I'm thinking about the final size of it as a much bigger component than I had before. How much do you consider size when working on a dummy? How often do you think about the size of books?
Last year I noticed a few oversize board books at our Barnes & Noble. A gigantic version of Freight Train had me tweeting 'Why?' My son has the 'normal' size book and it seemed just right. Since then, we've acquired a few books bigger and smaller than what I assumed was the average sized board book.
Now that my son is mobile, the giant Moo Baa La La La seem to stop him from a distance, just catching his attention as he toddles along. He'll play while standing at the couch, but so far he doesn't seem interested in flipping the pages in these behemoths. It's just too heavy. So I'm starting to see the value a bit, but I still find myself asking, Why? Is this size appealing for daycare centers, so workers can read to a group of toddlers without worrying about tearing of delicate pages? Will it be interesting to him when he's actually big enough to carry it, or will he prefer picture books? Is this targeted at reluctant readers, who want to feel BIG but can't sit for a more complex story? Or is it just another way to try and make money for the publishers? Not that I'm against it, but I feel like books should be the right size, for the right age and child.
The average sized board book has been our mainstay. Whether square or horizontal, it serves us well for laptime, wandering, stacking, flipping, grabbing, and loving. We prefer the native board books, not those picture books that have been shrunk down, although a few of those seem to work just as well (I Kissed the Baby comes to mind). Hanukkah Lights is no longer seasonal, but that hasn't stopped us from reading it often. It's a perfect first Melissa Sweet book, don't you think?
And last, but not least... the tiny book. Oh, how we loved this little apple-shaped book when we checked it out of the library! That's why its my pick for this month (see sidebar). I'm still thinking about tracking it down to buy, that's how much we miss it. It just fits in his little hands. It's light enough to carry everywhere - and really it got carried everywhere. And the illustrations inside charmed us over and over. Richard Scarry is timeless, even if some of the vehicles are a bit dated (a metal toothpaste car, and actual jar of yogurt as the yogurt car, etc.). I definitely understand the value in such a dear little object, especially with the scale and detail in the illustrations on white. I checked out a big picture book of Richard Scarry's and it just didn't have the same appeal - for either of us actually.
So what do you think, dear readers? Big, Little, Teeny - or all of the above?
I totally agree. Size & shape are so important & I start thinking about it when I start thumbnails. It has so much to do with how kids relate to certain stories. I'm not against ebooks or kindles but this aspect will be lost in those formats. Beatrix Potter's books' small size for small hands is all part of the charm of the books.
Thanks for a great post!
Very interesting post, Gina. My kids are all older now, so it's great to read the perspective from a small 'reader' again. I think there is a place for all the sizes but I have to agree, the larger ones are awkward. Probably idea for reading to a large group but not so great when you are sitting with your little one in your lap. I have been working on a new board book dummy and I've decided to go with 7 x 7. It seems to be a happy medium. Not too big and not too small.
I just wrote a long comment and it somehow got deleted. Arrgh..!
Anyway, I was saying that agree with you. I think book size is not something people too often think about.
For very little ones there is nothing better than a little book. They can hold it very well, turn the pages on their own and carry it around and take it everywhere, including their mouths ;o)
Plus we have to remember that for them that book is not little at all. Is just the right size scale wise.
Now for older kids books can start getting bigger.
I also think that some books, regardless of the age group the are targeted, can support the story better if it's the right size. If I were to do a book about a tiny mouse that lived in a narrow crack on a little house the book will be so much better if it were tiny too.
Great post Gina!
Our (almost) 4 year old loves his board books and really does not seem to favor a certain format (yet). He just loves books, any books.
The Richard Scarry Cars and Trucks book was one of his favorites when younger (he slept with it quite often from 2 - 2.5 yrs old) and he returns to this smaller board book even now. He has been more interested in the picture book formatted Richard Scarry books just recently (not necessarily the ones with picture/word labels, but rather the ones with a story line). He likes to hear about how those were favorites of mommy and daddy when they were his age.
Even though it seems that he is moving towards favoring the picture book format he has recently been a bit obsessed with the Beatrix Potter books (smaller format, longer text, tough language).
Another favorite of ours was One Bear, One Dog by Paul Stickland - in a large board book format. It worked well for reading to the young one in between both mom and dad at bedtime. Plus, this book boasts a mirror at the end, so perhaps the bigger the better? The larger board book format worked well for us in that situation, but the kiddo also liked these larger formats solo around the age of 1.5. I'd agree that the size and weight is tough for them early on.
We're still working on helping the 8 mo. old not to ingest books (or anything else for that matter) so he is still loving the cloth books (which are so great early on). We all really have loved Roger Priddy's books like Fuzzy Bee and Friends and Fluffy Chick and Friends.
Ooh! How about the board books with holes (such as Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert) which works so much better for the under 3 crowd as far a durability goes instead of the picture book (easier to tear pages as tiny fingers poke through the cut-outs). Of course the texture books are great too - I know Gina has mentioned the Usborne series of That's not my... books. The 4 year old now likes that he can "read" those on his own.
It's a great topic to think about Gina...and always interesting to see what is new at the book store.
Great comments from everyone - thank you! Funny that Beatrix Potter would come up a few times. I agree, Meg, the language (and content) is a little hard. But I do love their petite size - Miles tried to rip the pages last time we took them from the library, and they are quite long for him. I always love more titles to check out from the library! Since you mentioned it being a little bedtime companion, perhaps I will buy that little Scarry book for him. :)
I still wish I knew more about the oversize board book phenomenon...
I thuink it makes sense for kids of particular age group/sizes/focus ability to have the appropriate material! What an introspective and thoughtful post. Thanks for shedding light on this subject.