Happy Easter

Copyright 1990 by Tomie dePaola. From the book My First Easter

Katie and I would like to wish you all a very happy and safe Easter and ANZAC day.

We apologise for that our blog posts have been a little quiet over the last couple of weeks but we promise we will be back bigger than ever after the Easter break. There are exciting things going on in We Heart Books land, including some new projects and for me a new addition to the family – little Tess pictured here with her, very excited, big brother Ned….

Our boutique little book store is still going strong and you can have a look at the gorgeous stock here or why not follow us on Facebook, where we share some cool links to other blogs and also have some special offers for the We Heart Books store.

Whatever

I really love it when Ned gets totally enamored with a book. It has been the case recently with an extraordinary picture book called Whatever by British author/illustrator William Bee.

We saw this book read on a great BBC/ABC  TV show called Bookaboo. There have been many tries at creating TV shows to promote reading, mostly all of them have been daggy or the stories lame but Bookaboo is different and Ned loves it.

Bookaboo is the name of the character, a puppet dog who is a drummer in a heavy metal band and his tag line is ‘a story a day or I just can’t play‘. A UK celebrity features in each episode, turning up with the book bag to read a story to Bookaboo so that he can later play his drums in the band.

Looking past the fact that when I say celebrity I didn’t know who many of them were (although I did see Meatloaf on one episode) the stories they read are fantastic and thoughtfully chosen. The pictures are animated slightly which makes for great television and Bookaboo, the puppet, asks questions throughout so there is plenty of interaction with the story.

Ned loved it and laughed and laughed and then made me promise to get him the book. Ned’s dad and I have now read this fantastic book sooo many times between us.

Everything about the book is funny and clever. The text is great fun to read aloud and the pictures are a psychedelic, retro delight.

Billy the central character in the book is a little boy who is difficult to please – a theme that is recurrent at our place.

Billy’s father tries everything to get him excited, showing him something really tall or very small, the speediest spaceship and the smokiest train but Billy’s answer is always a very off hand ‘whatever’. Ned loves yelling out the ‘whatever’!

That is until Billy’s dad gives Billy this just deserts. Billy is swallowed by a tiger and what does Billy’s dad say? Whatever!!

Although so simple the concept and the humour really grabs Ned and it is delightful to see him grasp the funny side of the story that as adults we can appreciate as well.

Here is a clip from the Bookaboo website explaining why they chose to use Whatever on the show…

Find more videos like this on Bookaboo Grown-Ups

The reviews on Amazon are mostly all absolutely glowing about this book but there are a couple that are critical of the fact that a child gets eaten and dad says ‘whatever’. What do you think? Is this type of humour damaging in a picture book? Do you have favourites at your house that are a bit crazy?


We ♥ Checks and Spots

Today we were mentioned on the lovely design blog Checks and Spots.

Clare who writes this gorgeous blog ordered the Charley Harper Memory Game from our store last week, click over to Checks and Spots see what she says about our little store.

Thank you Clare xxx

Want more we heart books?

Did you know we are on Facebook? If you like the posts on our blog then join our page on Facebook too.  On Facebook we regularly post about  new arrivals to our store and also include lots more links to all that booky cool stuff that we love and we know you do too.

Leave us comments and questions…let us know what your little ones (and big ones) are reading. And stay tuned for give away details and special offers from the we heart books store.

It’s a lot of fun. Click here or on our little book below to be taken to our Facebook page…

oh, hello cute!

BookEnd Buddies and Book Lovers prints by Carolyne Tillery the amazing artist behind Etsy store oh, hello dear.

Carolyne also has a beautiful blog

Foxy Loxy

Katie and Rowan are reading the quintessential classic, Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl. They need one of these divine bookplates to pop in the front of their book…

This gorgeous bookplate is from the Etsy store Lineanongrata. The artist, Julia lives in the South of France and is a freelance illustrator.

Her art is spectacular and I think would make for sublime picture book illustrations.I think this is my favourite print, which is called Night Walk,  along with the Polar Bear Angel but it’s very hard to choose.

Julia also writes a really beautiful blog called Lineanongrata.

I Love Books!

The cutest wallpaper for your iPhone by artist Mogu Takahashi.


http://poolga.com/poolga/mogu-books