Simple Writing, Big Imagination

Ship Ahoy! and Firetruck both written and illustrated by Peter Sis celebrate the imagination of young creative minds. A boy rearranges his couch cushions to make various vessels fit for sea (or lake or river...). My son was especially taken with the vacuum cleaner sea monster figuring in prominently at the end of Ship Ahoy!. Firetruck similarly follows a young boy who eats, sleeps, and breathes firetrucks. One morning he wakes up to discover he has become a firetruck much to his delight.

And of course, Antoinette Portis's Not A Stick and Not A Box are now classic odes to imaginative young minds hard at play much beloved by the three year old in our house.

In The Town All Year Round

I LOVE this book. A large sized picture book follows a cast of characters as they make their way through their town and the seasons.

Familiar Faces, New Places

One of the most enjoyable aspects of any Mo Willems book, aside from the funny story he's dreamt of and illustrated to great effect, is finding his ubiquitous pigeon character in each of his books- it may be adorning a character's shirt or doing its best to blend in among a half dozen chocolate chip cookies in a jar.

It is this story-within-a-story, running-inside-joke theme in mind that has inspired tonight's post. Each Peach Pear Plum, written and illustrated by husband and wife team Allen and Janet Ahlberg, was the first such book I encountered with my daughter when she was wee and only getting acquainted with well-known nursery rhyme characters such as Mother Hubbard and Baby Bunting. The rhyming verse transports the reader to a fairy tale land where familiar characters' stories are woven together and illustrated with great ahem aplumb.

Along these lines, Alison Lester's delightful The Journey Home tells the tale of an intrepid, imaginative brother and sister due who travel across many varied fairy tale lands encountering many familiar characters-pirates, mermaids, gypsies until they finally arrive home again, home again, jiggety jig.

Charlie Cook's Favorite Book by author/illustrator dream team Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (the great minds behind Room on the Broom, The Gruffalo, and The Snail and the Whale to name just a few other brilliant collaborations of theirs to check out) takes the story-within-a-story a step further. Each character mentioned in Charlie Cook- a wonderfully illustrated, truly enchanting story- has a favorite book featuring yet another character with their own storyline and favorite book which features yet another character and so on and so, delightfully, forth.

A Day in the Life

Both Bulldog's Big Day and A Glorious Day are very enjoyable picture books filled with engaging details and fun characters. Bulldog is off on a mission of sorts to find the job just right for his specific talents, while A Glorious Day follows the children dwelling in the same apartment building living magically simple moments, both apart and together. I lovelovelove the illustrations in both books, sweetly rendered in gouache and watercolor with some ink and pencil mixed in for good measure. Happy reading!