Picture Book Survey
The latest crop of children’s picture books highlights the ability of this versatile genre to cover everything from the ever-popular animal tale, to sparkling stories about fairies, to introspective contemplations on the meaning of life.
... (read more)Many adults who grew up the 1980s doubtless remember a hairy, conical-shaped creature with very big feet that lived in the Australian bush, as well as a large hippopotamus that lived on a little girl’s roof and ate cake. The conical creature was, of course, Grug. Ted Prior’s Grug books were small, affordable paperbacks featuring simple but entertaining stories about this unflappable creature. The series is now being republished, and it includes new titles such as Grug and the Circus and Grug Learns to Read (Simon & Schuster, $4.99 pb, 32 pp).
... (read more)The line between picture books, graphic novels and comic books is becoming increasingly blurred as picture books adopt elements from a wide range of graphic forms of storytelling.
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It is the often hapless task of the reviewer to draw together observations on the aspirations and creations of up to six people into a seamless and riveting piece of critical prose. Sometimes it is just not possible, as is the case here, when all these three books have in common is that they are picture books, and will probably be found somewhere near each other in a bookshop or library.
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