Review rated by 51 Ciao members on average: very helpful
This review received a counterstatement by a party concernedRead Comment
I was ordering a memory card from Amazon and, as always, felt obliged to look for a few books for my son to make up the money to get free delivery! Being 2 ½ I thought a book about opposites would be good as it's something we've not even considered teaching him yet. This one caught my eye immediately and I eagerly awaited its arrival.
My immediate impression when I opened the book was that it was absolutely, without doubt, a really unusual and beautiful book. It is published by Barefoot Books, a company I've never come across before but will be looking out for in future.
*** BAREFOOT PHILOSOPHY *** Apparently Barefoot Books' motto is, 'Walk the way of wonder'. They aim to represent many cultures through artist, writers and storytellers. Their stories promote understanding of different cultures and independence. Their books encourage harmony with the natural world, moving across different boundaries that haven't been crossed before.
*** ILLUSTRATOR/AUTHOR *** Claire Beaton (picture below) illustrated this book. She worked for 8 years as an illustrator for children's TV programmes for the BBC. She has had almost 50 books published and is as very sought after creator of handcrafted picture books.
Stella Blackstone has written songs, poems and rhymes as long as she can remember and has produced the rhyme for this book.
*** LAYOUT/PICTURES *** Firstly, the layout is set over a double spread of the book producing eleven back drops for the text. The pictures are very prominent and bold with the text only having a small area at the top or bottom of one side of the double page.
By far the best bit of this book is the illustration. Claire Beaton has created the pictures using three things: felt, cotton and beads. She is a huge recycler and I can imagine she's rummaged many bits and bobs from her workroom to create this. The pictures are outstandingly beautiful. A mixture of colours and shades are used with fun cheeky-looking animals at the forefront. Animals vary in size and always relate to the text. You can clearly see the textures of the felt through the photograph/picture as well as the hand-sewn stitches and beads. Although the main characters are clear, she also decorated the pages with things such as small flowers and ladybirds. There is a pig that appears on all the pages. The main story leads you through a trail of animals that all have opposites to eventually find the pig.
*** TEXT/CONTEXT *** Each piece of text for the picture is written over two lines in bold black print. The first line relates to an opposite theme in the picture such as in and out or fat and thin. The second line has two parts. The first part always asks, 'But how big is a pig?' and then a phrase or question to encourage you to tell whoever is writing the book (which you find out towards the end are piglets).
*** RATINGS *** This is a difficult one. Initially, I was disappointed with the text in this book. I have come to the conclusion that it is a lovely book and I would very much recommend it but it was bought a year or so too early for my son as some knowledge of opposites is probably required for it. I would heartily give 5 stars for the illustration but 4 stars for the text. As I'm in a good mood and there's no ½'s available to me, I will give the book an overall 5.
*** OTHER INFORMATION *** www.barefoot-books.com ISBN 1-84148-078-9 RRP £4.99
Clearly buying a book that doesn't quite 'fit' what you wanted will colour your judgement...but this review manages to override that and allow the reader to judge not only if but when to buy it. Neatly done. Lx
by (90%):
by (10%):
23.05.2006 12:35
Another great review!!
21.05.2006 17:33
aww how sweeet :)
19.05.2006 17:27
Clearly buying a book that doesn't quite 'fit' what you wanted will colour your judgement...but this review manages to override that and allow the reader to judge not only if but when to buy it. Neatly done. Lx