What's Your Favourite Animal?

This handsome picture book is something of a homage to the great Eric Carle, something of a celebration of the health of children’s illustration in the United States, and something of a classy advertisement for the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Massachusetts. Fourteen prominent illustrators, some veterans, like Steven Kellogg and Rosemary Wells, and some newer guys on the block, like Jon Klassen and Nick Bruel, and including Eric Carle himself, contribute a double page spread on the theme of their favourite animal. Most animals take up the whole of the double page, one or two are in comic strip format. Most are accompanied by a short text from the illustrator, occasionally revelatory of their childhood or personality, which attaches a story or comment to the illustration. And, at the back of the book, there is a double page of paragraphs about each illustrator with a photograph of themselves as a child, sometimes with an animal. Some of these illustrators will be more familiar to British readers than others, and Lucy Cousins is the only British illustrator to feature, but, given the stature of the contributors, all award winners of one kind or another, each picture is a work of art, sometimes humorous, sometimes (alongside the text) gently thought provoking; and each, you feel, aware of its place in this portable gallery. Readers of any age will enjoy the pictures, be prompted to think about their own favourite animals and, perhaps, why they have made that choice. They will also be introduced incidentally to a range of styles of picture book illustration.