The Little Books of the Little Brontës, written by Sara O’Leary and illustrated by Briony May Smith (Walker Books), focuses on the childhood of the four Brontë siblings and their rich creative lives, firstly painting and writing stories in little books, then later world-building the paracosmic Glass Town, based on a group of toy soldiers gifted to Branwell by their father.1 The book mixes this with a glimpse of their every day life both inside of their home where sorrow and joy cohabit daily and outside in their little town of Haworth and the surrounding moors. This is mirrored in the variety ..read more

It’s Bologna Book Fair this week and two very important picturebook lists have just come out to coincide with the biggest event in the children’s publishing calendar: dPictus’s 100 Outstanding Picturebooks and the BRAW Amazing Bookshelf, which also contains 100 titles. While many of those books are not available in translation, it is nonetheless interesting to discover what is being published beyond our shores (click on the logos below to access the full details of each list) I was interested to look at how this was split by country in each case. Note that these are the countries where the or ..read more

If there is one Christmas picturebook to add to your collection this festive season, it is, without a doubt, How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney? by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen (Walker Books). Full disclosure: you will not get any answers from this book, but the string of possibilities offered by super duo Barnett and Klassen will definitely not leave you disappointed. Their collaborations are always an absolute treat; Barnett’s wit and Klassen’s earnest characters and beautiful mix of graphite and ink bounce off each other so flawlessly. Together they have created the most wonderful deadpan t ..read more

I have been revisiting my dissertation (a very painful experience I may add as I hate reading my own work) to reacquaint myself with picturebook theory. Part of it included researching , via the excellent Children Reading Pictures: Interpreting Visual Texts by Evelyn Arizpe and Morag Styles, and applying art theory by art historian Kenneth Clark. In his work Looking at Pictures, Clark gathers essays that were originally published in The Sunday Times, and each focuses on a famous piece of artwork, from Velasquez to Seurat via Courbet and da Vinci. Though the essays are enjoyable in themselves ..read more

Thames & Hudson have long been at the forefront of publishing books on the arts and design, but they are also one of the few publishers who continue to publish books about illustration as an Art form. In the last few months they have released two volumes which will undoubtedly delight and fascinate picturebook enthusiasts. The Quentin Blake Book by Jenny Uglow offers us a window into the creative mind of one of the pioneers of 20th Century illustration, and how his style has evolved over the years, from Spectator covers, via his well-known artwork for children’s publishing, to his more re ..read more

What better way to celebrate Bookshop Day than with a book that follows the long journey of a picturebook from printing press to reader’s hands via, of course, a lovely independent bookshop? This is exactly what Special Delivery: A Book’s Journey Around the World (Nosy Crow), written by Polly Faber and illustrated by Klas Fahlén, does. The narrative text is concise but informative, including lots of details about the processes and people involved in the distribution chain. The artwork is colourful and elegant, with sharp lines and a wonderful mid-century quality. The book ends with a few pa ..read more

Karrie Fransman & Jonathan Plackett(Faber Children’s Books) A couple of years ago I wrote about Gender Swapped Fairy Tales as part of the blog tour celebrating its release and the fascinating algorithm used by the book’s creators to literally swap one gender for another , with fascinating insights into how such tales might affect our gender bias as a result. This time the team focus on Greek myths, with tales equally anchored in our culture and steeped in patriarchal tradition. Greek heroes are often the epitome of macho behaviour, while Greek heroines are either conniving or feeble. The ..read more

Caryl Hart (text) & Emily Hamilton (artwork) (Bloomsbury Children’s Books) “Whenever I am feeling sad or life feels hard or wrong or bad, I focus for a little while on little things that make me smile…“ When my children were little, reading Caryl Hart’s rhyming texts was a regular and joyful occurrence in our house. Doing rhyming properly in a picturebook is hard and Caryl Hart is one of the few UK based picturebook writers that does it right. Rhyming texts really help the audience become engaged in the narrative straight away. This is further enabled in Thank You for Little Things by the ..read more

Júlia Sardà (Walker Studio) When Franca, the eldest of three sisters is suddenly overcome with feelings of restlessness and is and lured by the dark forest beyond the garden, there begins a strange adventure full of unusual encounters and fantastical occurrences. So is the premise of this unique and fascinating picturebook; a pinch of the absurdism of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and a hint of the rumpus of Where the Wild Things Are are apparent in this coming of age tale where unusual happenings forewarn of changes to come and where there is a strong sense of a before and after. This is ..read more

Until this coming Friday (24th September), members of CILIP can nominate titles to put forward for the 2022 Carnegie and Greenaway medals. In order to be eligible for the 2022 Medals, books: – must have been published in the UK or Ireland between 01 September 2020 and 31 August 2021. – which have been first published in another country, must have been co-published in the UK or Ireland within three months of the original publication date (unless it’s a translation) – must be written in the English language (either as an original work in English or a first English translation of a foreign-langu ..read more