1,2,3; abc; Things that go; Animals
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Cover Story
The anarchic hero of many daring adventures, William, as depicted on our cover by Thomas Henry in one of his effective, humorous pen and ink illustrations, is now a period piece. A William de nos jours illustrated by Tony Ross and aimed at a younger audience stands alongside him. This new William will be featured in adaptations of the stories by Martin Jarvis. Richmal Crompton, author of the William books, is the subject of this issue's Authorgraph. Thanks to Macmillan Children’s Books for their help with this November cover.
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1,2,3
abc
Things that go
Animals
Another set of 'first concept' picture books? Well, at least they promise to 'entertain babies and toddlers, as well as adults'... Hmm. Not this adult. For a start, how many board book babies of your acquaintance can make sense of numbers or the alphabet? Perhaps that is the bit for adults... In reality these are 'point and name' books which will be outgrown before the concepts have meaning.
Things that go and Animals have a two-word text describing each image - 'Happy monkeys... Slow tortoise... Furry polar bear... Tall giraffe... Two birds' (not even 'parrots'). Though, of course, the sharer can expand on this while discussing the picture, this text is a banal starting point with little purpose, or consistency. The illustrations, of painted paper collage in a pleasing range of colours, are highly stylised. While this works for some images, the essence of a bee, a duck or a polar bear is not well conveyed if they are each reduced to a circle and an oval with legs.
It would be nice to see a publisher pay enough attention to its board book audience to commission a really worthwhile set of concept books from an excellent illustrator, rather than yet more of the acceptable-but-dull variety represented here.
