The lovely bookish posts just keep coming this week. Design Mom has posted some gorgeous photo’s of Jennifer Khoshbin’s cut paper artwork. I have poured over and over Khoshbins’ website and she has an etsy store, so much goodness. 

Also 123 Oleary, Media Macaroni and Crooked House have all been excited about the release of a trailer for the animated film Coraline, based on Coraline by Neil Gaiman and due for release in 2009. Now I’m excited TOO!

While on Youtube I also found this clip of a Disney animation test in 1983 for Where the Wild Things Are, obviously it was never made but the test is very cool.

One of the things I used to love about working in bookstores was when new boxes arrived from publishers. It was like Christmas every month, the anticipation and the joy of finding out what was inside.

Now I get that feeling when I walk into a bookshop to see what is new on the shelves and also when I’m browsing the internet, checking out other peoples blogs for new and exciting books.

A couple of days a go I came across Suzy Lee on Amazon. The book is Wave and it is wordless.

Suzy Lee is amazing and I must now have Wave on my bookshelf; have a look at her website here to learn more about this very gorgeous artist.

Wordless picture books are of course an art because the whole story must be conveyed convincingly in the illustrations. They are very important in education for prompting children to learn how to interpret stories and also to recognise a beginning, middle and end in story telling. Wordless books are great at home as well; younger children can enjoy explaining what is happening in the illustrations and older children can take it further by imagining alternate endings and additional plot lines. Wordless picture books are rewarding.

weheartbooks top 5 wordless picture books

1. Up and Up (Shirley Hughes)

I love Shirley Hughes and one of my favorite books as a child was Dogger, or David and the Dog as it is known in the USA (I’ll post about that one another time). She is one of the best known children’s author/illustrators in the world. Set out in comic strip style Up and Up consists of black line drawings against a sepia background. The story of a little girl who longs to fly, it is purely magical as you follow her journey: she gets her wish and off she goes up and up. Her personality is infectious and she always makes me smile as she drifts along until she is finally rescued by a man in a hot air balloon. There is so much to look at in this book which makes it a great tool for encouraging children to make up their own stories. It doesn’t even have to be about the main character, you could make up different stories for the others she meets along the way. Ages 3+

2. The Arrival (Shaun Tan)

Well I just think this award winning book is incredible, in fact Shaun Tan is incredible. The Arrival depicts the journey of a man who leaves home for a strange, fantastical land in order to support his family. The hundreds of drawings Tan worked on for this stunning book are partly a reflection of his own father’s journey to Australia and his struggle to fit into an alien culture. More than a book The Arrival is an awe-inspiring artwork; every time I pick it up I find new and amazing elements that I had missed before. Ages 8+

3. The Snowman (Raymond Briggs)

Regarded as a cult classic this picture book tells a story in pictures - 175 frames to be exact - of the one night friendship of a boy and his snowman. The boy lovingly creates the man out of snow and when he looks out of his window that night he discovers the snowman is alive. They take each other on a tour of their worlds, the boy of his house and the snowman of his wintery world. In the morning when the boy wakes up the snowman is gone, he has melted and all that is left are pieces of coal. This book is all about the joy of exploring and discovering new things, it is about new friendships and then the fond memories of those friendships. This book really does give children the opportunity to imagine their own ending to the story. 4+

4. Sunshine and Moonlight (Jan Omerod)

These are favorites of mine from childhood, I can remember borrowing them from the school library numerous times. In the last few years they have been re-published and are just as beautiful as I remember them way back in primary school. Sunshine follows the progression of a little girl’s day as she gets up out of bed and begins her daily routine. My favorite scenes are when she hops into bed with her parents while they read their morning papers; everyone in this house has a routine and they all fit into each other’s. Toddlers can compare their routine in the morning before childcare/preschool with this little girl’s. Jan includes so much detail that this is perfect for beginning discussion with children about their own routines. Sunshine won the Australian Children’s Book of the Year Award in 1982. Moonlight is similar to Sunshine but of course follows the routine on the other end of the day; cleaning teeth, bathtime and bed. Ages 2+

5. Tuesday (David Wiesner)

Reading Tuesday is like watching an M. Night Shyamalan film; it is weird, quirky, funny and enthralling. On this particular Tuesday around 8 in the evening a strange thing begins to happen, suddenly frogs/toads start to invade the town levitating on lily pads and seemingly having a great time. The frogs eventually return to their rightful homes BUT the big surprise is what is going to happen on the following Tuesday? Tuesday won the prestigious Caldecott Medal and Wiesner’s amazing speech is here. I love this quote from that speech

Fortunately, kids know funny when they see it. If, after reading Tuesday one evening before bed, they look out the window and see frogs flying by—well, we should all be so lucky.

Wiesner’s art is incredible and I can guarantee that parents will love this as much as their children. Ages 4+

Although we have used some very classic choices here there is also room for a special mention for the fantastic wordless books by wonderful Australian illustrator Gregory Rogers, The Boy, the Bear, the Baron and the Bard and sequel Midsummer Knight. Ages 6+

With so much awareness now of environmental issues here are our favorite green children’s books…

1. The Lorax (Dr. Seuss)

The original and the best children’s book about the perils of destroying your environment with greed and selfishness. “UNLESS someone like you…cares a whole awful lot…nothing is going to get better…It’s not.” Of course this picture book is typical Dr Seuss with wild tongue twisting rhymes and technicolour illustrations that almost require sunglasses to look at but it is also probably Seuss’ most important and prophetic work. The Once-ler describes how he has decimated the Loraxs’ habitat with deforestation and air and water pollution to set up his manufacturing plants, leading to the poor Loraxs’ extinction. Check out the Lorax Earth Day website- help the real Lorax forests.

2. Weslandia (Paul Fleischman and Kevin Hawkes)

This beautiful picture book is so very important in many ways. Protagonist Wesley is bullied at school because he doesn’t conform to what his peers consider normal, for example he doesn’t like pizza! While he is on school holidays and with no friends to play with he decides to create himself a self sustainable civilisation. He uses a plot of earth and grows a crop of ’swist’ a plant of his own creation that takes off soon towering above him and and bearing bizarre looking fruit. Soon Wesley discovers that he can use his strange crop as a multitude of things including clothing and shelter thus creating his ‘Weslandia’. Kevin Hawkes beautifully illustrates Wesley’s utopia giving little children a lavish landscape to admire while older children will grasp the themes of environment and social conscience.

3. We are the Weather Makers : The story of Global Warming (Tim Flannery)

This revised and updated version of Australian Tim Flannery’s best selling book on climate change is for a young adult audience, the children who it seems will inherit all these environmental issues from previous generations. This is science without all the jargon, in depth Flannery explains all the problems regarding the climate and also explores the solutions but all in a way that is easy to digest and understand. It is broken into chapters on each issue and has been printed in an excellent easy to read type. Marketed for an audience of 9 to 90 this is a great introduction to the world we live in today.

4. Scarlette Beane (Karen Wallace and Jon Berkeley)

The acrylic illustrations in this picture book are just so gorgeous. Scarlette is adorable with her face as red as a beet and little green fingers. On her fifth birthday she receives a small garden all of her own and begins to plant. Her vegies grow and grow until her whole neighborhood is enjoying the spoils. This is a beautiful sweet tale of ecology, friendship and sharing good food. Children love identifying objects and in this picture book there are plenty of vegetables to point at and name as well as showing them how plants grow.

5. Uno’s Garden (Graeme Base)

And of course funny little Uno! Winner of the The Wilderness Society Picture Book of the Year 2007, they described Uno’s Garden like this “Uno’s Garden is a lively and lavishly detailed picture book about environmental sustainability. A whimsical imaginary landscape demonstrates the importance of learning from past mistakes to ensure a balanced and liveable future“. See Katie’s fab post here about the Uno’s Garden Myer windows last Christmas.

And mummy is reading this!

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, it’s a fascinating imagining of what would happen to the planet if humans disappeared.

I came across this beautiful new book the other day, by Helen Ward and Marc Craste. This book is one that straddles the border between picture book and graphic novel, and is no doubt intended for an older audience than the traditional picture book.(This genre is also being explored with great success by Australian author and illustrator, Shaun Tan, whose book The Arrival has won a host of awards here and overseas.)

The illustrations in Varmints are incredibly evocative, and have been done by film-maker Marc Craste, whose debut short film, Jo Jo in the Stars won the 2004 BAFTA Best Animated Short Film. Marc lends Varmints a wonderfully cinematic feel: the use of tracing paper and even the elements of gloss on the cover give it a feeling of movement, and there is an amazing sense of filmic perspective on the angles taken in the illos.

The text is lyrical and poignant, and works perfectly alongside the images.

Varmints tackles the theme of environmental degradation, and it reminds me a bit of both Dr Seuss’s The Lorax (the ultimate greenie book for kids written long before eco-matters were a daily news item) and Graeme Base’s Uno’s Garden (reviewed by me here).

This is a beautiful book for collectors, and I couldn’t resist it. (I had in mind that I might give it to someone, but by the time I got it home, couldn’t imagine who it would suit better than, well, me!)

Ned’s daddy and I actually sat down to watch a film together last night, something we haven’t done for ages. The film was beautiful and one of the best screen versions of a book I have seen in a long time. The film was Bridge to Terabithia based on the Katherine Paterson novel of the same name published long ago in 1977. I vividly remember studying this novel in about Year 7 (long ago!) and I also remember that it was the first book I had read that really made me cry so passionately for the characters. The film also made me cry but don’t think this is a sad film! It is also an amazing story of friendship, imagination and strength; the sadness is an integral part of the story but it is brilliantly handled. The performances of the children as 10 year olds Jess and Leslie are perfect and it also features one of my favorite actresses, the stunning Zooey Deschanel as the children’s arty music teacher. Before I saw the film I was concerned that the trailers contained too much computer generated imagery of the imaginary Terabithians, however this wasn’t so in the feature and I felt it was done very tastefully to give the film a currency without being too scary or bizarre. It was so lovely in fact that I would give it 5 out of 5 on The Movie Show and I’m definitely going to keep a copy for the time when Ned and I can sit and watch together.

Paterson’s original novel won the 1978 Newbery Medal, an award given by the American Library Association for outstanding children’s literature. What I didn’t know is that the book was actually on the challenged books list in the US because people took offence to the fact that Jess says “Lord” sometimes outside of prayer and also because they believed that the book encouraged satanic magic. How far have we come when very recently people have objected to the Harry Potter books for the same reason. Although Bridge to Terabithia is 30 years old as a novel its concepts have not dated and this wonderful movie has successfully given it a new life.

There are many more movies based on children’s books that just have been and are just about to be released. Of course there is Horton Hears A Who based on probably the nicest character created by Dr. Seuss. Horton is a lovable elephant who discovers the city of Whoville on a microscopic speck of dust attached to a flower. Horton is the only one who can hear the Whos of Whoville and so sets about protecting them from their enemies. The trouble is that in Horton’s world there are laws that prevent anyone believing in anything they cannot see or hear. The reviews for this animated version of the Seuss picture book have been fantastic, which is great considering the other films of his books have been flops - although I did like The Grinch. The Age/SMH gave it a tremendous review. I love the similarities between original Horton and 2008 Horton in the pictures below…

The film I really want to see, desperately, is The Spiderwick Chronicles. Based on the 5 book series by Holly Black and illustrated by the amazing Tony DiTerlizzi in which Jarod, Simon and Mallory Grace find a mysterious old book which allows them entry into a world filled with Goblins, Pixies, Trolls and other fantastical creatures. The trailers for this film look incredible and it is also getting wonderful reviews from sources like Variety. Actor Freddie Highmore (Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) plays both Jarod and Simon Grace as they are identical twins; I can’t wait to see how they have managed that.

About to be released is Nim’s Island based on the lovely intermediate novel by Australian author Wendy Orr, first published in 1999 and illustrated by Kerry Millard. The film was shot on the Gold Coast and on Hinchenbrook Island, North Queensland. I loved reading Nim because she is such a strong female character, living on a deserted island with all her animal friends; she is like a more modern Pippi Longstocking. The father of Nim (Abigail Breslin from Little Miss Sunshine) is missing and she is alone until by fate her favorite author (Jodie Foster) a recluse from New York is washed up on the island. Together they must find the courage to prevail over their fears and track down Nim’s dad.

Relating to this post and about the Where the Wild Things Are movie there is a great article from The Age today written by Thornton McCamish about children’s love of scary stories in both literature and film.

I’m not ashamed to say that I was a huge Anne-of-Green-Gables fan. At the age of about 10, I devoured the entire series.

I’ve found out (via Crooked House) that in honour of ‘100 Years of Anne’, an authorised prequel to Anne of Green Gables is being released. Not sure how I feel about this. I kind of like the fact that it’s left to our imaginations what happened before Anne met Marilla and Matthew. Authorised prequels written by a different author never really work, do they?

For die-hard fans (I don’t quite make this category any more…) you can enter a letter writing competition and from the same site you can download a number of bizarre extras (recipe for Raspberry Cordial? Introduction to the Waltz?)

I always thought I’d love to one day to visit the home of LM Montgomery, on Prince Edward Island in Nova Scotia (thanks, Island Sparrow!). Having taken the (slightly strange) virtual tour the Green Gables house, I think I’m satisfied for now.