It is my intention to celebrate the work of beautiful picture books in this blog. This has been to the exclusion of unpictured children’s books, which occupy far less space on my shelves but are otherwise highly valued and upstanding members of my collection. When I was a children’s bookseller, I read a lot of novels and YA, and although I continue to read and collect picture books, my attention to unpictured books has languished. Let me clarify this point: last year I was coerced into reading a popular teen vampire novel, part of a series…can’t think of the name…which my teenage nieces were raving about. I dutifully finished the book, felt a fluttering of breathless youth (quickly staunched by middle-aged cynicism), followed by a few days of fitful ennui about an entire category of books I’m no longer reading, or advocating.

It’s a shame, really. In the decade I worked at the bookstore, I read more children’s novels than I ever did as a kid, and a few of those are among the best to ever cross my book-strewn path. So, in spite of the fact that novels tend to exceed 32 pages, and are short on illustrations, I will periodically post a review of a well-loved novel in my collection, or perhaps, even a new book, if one should catch my attention.

To that end, when my thoughts wander to my favourite children’s stories, I often think of My Brother’s Ghost, by Allan Ahlberg, a deeply moving, palm-sized novel set in working-class 1950’s England. Published a scant 10 years ago, My Brother’s Ghost has the feel of an old classic. An old British classic, along the same vein as Goodnight Mister Tom, by Michelle Magorian, or Nesbit’s The Railway Children. Quintessentially British, but on the sombre side of the Thames. No ‘pip pip cheerio’ or Blytonesque jolly good adventures in Ahlberg’s story, just illness, abuse and death. Hey! Come back! It’s a great book. I promise.

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Interesting idea for a book. Award winning Argentinian poet Jorge Luján canvased children throughout Latin America, via the internet, enquiring about their pets, which included everything from dogs to a poetry-hating marmot. He then ‘shaped the children’s thoughts and feelings’ into this collection of absolutely delightful poems, which read like humourous little glimpses into the lives and minds of children. It’s not all frogs, and snails and puppy-dog tails, there’s some sugar and spice too, but Doggy Slippers is quite simply, a joy. It almost makes me wish I had kids.

Children have a freshness of thought and an unfiltered honesty which makes them a hit at parties and occasionally, and embarrassment at the dinner table, but as evidenced in Doggy Slippers, children are natural poets, especially when it comes to expressions of the heart, and the love of a good monkey.

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If you are an admirer of quirky illustration, and you’ve never heard of Lane Smith, then clearly, you don’t know Jack. If you collect beautiful picture books, and The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip is not part of your collection, your collection doesn’t know Jack. And if  you own a goat, and you’ve never checked them for gappers, not even once, then forget about Jack, you need to know Capable, the spiky-haired, brighter than bright heroine of this strange and deceptively brilliant story.

The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip is an inspired collaboration between two artists at the peak of their excellence and eccentricity: George Saunders, humourist & short story fabulist, and Lane Smith, visual maverick & current focus of my deepest jealousy. The writing, illustration, design, and ideas expressed in this book elevate it beyond the usual children’s picture book fare, and even beyond the unusual. It’s a true gem.

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Edward Lear, J. Patrick Lewis and Gary Kelley walk into a bar…

Bosh!

The trio have not come together as the preamble to an old joke. They are in fact, the inspiration for, and the creators of Boshblobberbosh, one of the most beautiful and unusual picture books ever published for children, and more than a few adults who collect this sort of nonsense.

Boshblobberbosh is a loving homage to Edward Lear: parrot-painter and word confabulist, devotee of all things furred and feathered (with the exception of dogs and camels), companion to a cat named Foss, who lived for 31 years*, and a man who was, in all respects, the King of High Bosh.

Although the book is written by prolific author and poet, J. Patrick Lewis, the poems are inspired by Lear’s extraordinary life. With every ‘runcible’ word, tumbling across each oversized page, up one side and down the other, in the rich, almost sculptural thereness of the illustrations, Boshblobberbosh is a one-book argument against the digitalization of print literature, in particular, illustrated print literature.

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Guess Who's Coming for Dinner?

Sometimes it’s just too much. I fall for a pretty face in a bookstore, take the book home, and then think, ‘why did I buy this?’ After many years working in an independent bookstore, and in the years beyond, I’ve accumulated many such indulgences. It’s bibliophelia in combination with a bit of shopaholism and a soupçon of misplaced affection. Every so often I feel compelled to bring a book home, even when I know it’s not true love. I wish to support bookstores, authors, illustrators, and in particular, the continued publication of high quality (printed) picture books, but funds and especially space are limited. If the thrill starts to wane a day or two after I’ve purchased a book, or worse, as I’m walking out of the store, it’s a sign that something other than affection was driving my decision. I try to buy only what I love, but sometimes I mistake admiration for love, and even that can be complicated by other factors which inevitably lead to misunderstandings, and an accumulation of unwanted books on my shelves. I suppose this is true of any sort of over-consumption of mood-altering substances, even those that are printed and bound.

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