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Following on from the wordless Welcome to the Zoo by Alison Jay we have recently been enjoying another story told without words, The Red Book by Barbara Lehman.

Through simple line drawings and the clever use of frames to create pace Barbara Lehman tells the story of a young girl who, on her way to school, comes across a book, bound in red, lying on the pavement. Upon opening it up she is both magically and literally drawn into the story of a young boy, on an island far away, who has a matching red book. These tomes act like two-way mirrors – the girl can look in to her book and see the boy on his beach, whilst the boy can look through into the girl’s urban world full of skyscrapers. Once these two characters are united we see their red books slipping away and a new set of connections being made by the next lucky people to happen upon the red books.

The clean, uncluttered, apparently simple illustrations are superb – by changing the size of her illustrations, varying the perspective, framing some scenes and not others Lehman has created a real “page-turner”, a story that that swept up M and ignited her imagination. Like stepping into paintings (as in Katie and the Sunflowers or Flyaway Katie), stepping into books and physically becoming part of the story is exciting draw for the reader (young or old), offering whole new worlds of possibilities.

Additionally, I loved the metaphor of books enabling us to connect with people far away, in different countries and from different cultures and how that connection, and personal adventure, can be passed on by passing on the book to someone else. A specific book may come into our lives for a short while but the experience can stay with us long after and be something that connects us to others.

The cyclical or perhaps more aptly the moebius-strip-like construction of the story reminded us of another lovely wordless book – Flotsam (which we reviewed some time back, here) by David Wiesner. The complex and detailed illustrations in the book by Wiesner made me reflect on how engaging the illustrations in The Red Book are, despite being almost at the other end of the scale when it comes to (apparent) simplicity and minimalism.

The landscape the girl with the red book inhabits is one of high skyscrapers and cheek-by-jowl buildings. Inspired by this, we set about making our own cityscape to play with and in.

First I covered several boxes in brown parcel paper. This may not be necessary if you are using brown cardboard boxes, but I’ve found that lots of boxes (eg for nappies) are hard to paint on with tempura paint because of the shiny surface. If you do use paper to cover your boxes then I recommend using masking tape rather than regular sellotape as again, paint

Today’s Fantastic Fiction for Kids selection comes from Nancy at Bees Knees Reads. Nancy has two girls, aged 4 and 6, and they live in a small town on the coast in northern California.

Three years ago she started blogging about picture books with her sister Kim Baise at Bees Knees Reads and around the same time they developed a start-up press, Bees Knees Books to collaborate with author/illustrators and publish picture books. They released two books in 2009: Maybelle, Bunny of the North by Keith Patterson and A Wonderful Week by Marjolein Varekamp. If all this weren’t enough to keep Nancy busy she also runs a bookstore – Coastside Books! I’m sure Nancy has bad days like the rest of us, but her existence sounds quite idyllic to me

Nancy’s theme this week is “shifting perspectives”. Of selecting these books Nancy wrote “Although two of the stories have characters with disabilities (blind and deaf) the stories are really more about looking at the world (or one’s own experience) from a different viewpoint. And I think the story, I Feel A Foot, which is a retelling of a Sufi fable illustrates that theme perhaps most obviously. One of my favorite sayings is, “Don’t believe everything you think!” And these three books playfully challenge the reader to shift her perspective many times.”

The Black Book of Colors by Menena Cottin and illustrated by Rosana Faria.

The author and illustrator are from Venezuela and the book was first published in Spanish. It is beautiful in it’s conception and production. The pages are black with embossed illustrations and Braille underneath the lettering so the reader must touch the pages, shifting one’s senses from sight to touch. The narrator is guided by Thomas who is blind and he describes color by how he feels or experiences color. There is a great excerpt and review here. After reading this book together you can ask children to close their eyes and imagine/describe what different colors look like. Is Thomas’ world black or is it rich with color?

The Deaf Mus

3 Comments on Fantastic Fiction for Kids – Shifting Perspectives, last added: 2/18/2010

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Andi said, on 2/17/2010 3:15:00 AM

These sound like great books! As an activity, how about painting or sculpting with your eyes closed (or blindfolded)? It is such a different feeling to create something based on touch and feel alone.

Janelle @ Brimful Curiosities said, on 2/17/2010 7:46:00 AM

My daughter just started learning a little sign language at school. She loves talking with her hands and can say I love you (mom, dad, grandpa, grandma). She really caught on quick!

Nancy said, on 2/17/2010 10:29:00 PM

I’ll have to check out that reissue of The Seeing Stick! And I really like the music suggestions especially Beethoven’s later works, when he lost his hearing. I know this was a challenge. Something I like to do with the kids in the car on the way to school is to ask them to name the different instruments they hear in a piece of music. This gives them the awareness of different ways of hearing the music.

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