Katie and I have been meaning to post on this amazing book for a while now.

Gallop! is not your usual animal picture book. It has been in the independent booksellers’ top 10 lists for months which is unusual for a children’s book that’s not a Harry Potter.

The author of Gallop!, Rufus Butler Seder has created a technique called ‘Scanimation’ which gives the illustrations in the book motion. Although it is hard to describe it is delightfully intriguing and utterly mesmerising to look at. I have opened it over and over again, amazed at how it works and at how fluidly the animals seemingly move. I say seemingly because the cleverness of ‘Scanimation’ is that it uses a trick of the eye called ‘persistence of vision‘ and the overlayed striped acetate pages create the illusion of movement in the illustrations. As the title of the book suggests the horse gallops across the page and on each new page a different animal moves too.

Katie and I both have a copy of Gallop! and although the concept of the animation in the book is too old for our boys, Ned still loves watching the movement on each page. The book has rhyming text which makes the age range of the book for between 3- and 5-year-olds however much older children will appreciate the complexity of the animation and will enjoy the exploration of finding out how it works. This is a book that will grow with children and is a very exciting development in the world of children’s publishing - what wonderful things will be coming next?

Click on the above image and you will see the horse move as it does in the book.