My First Blog

Today I decided I would start a blog about children's books and the world they come from. And so, here it is! This blog will basically be a mishmash of children's book news, reviews and general musings. I hope some of it will be of some interest to someone...or some such.

I thought I'd dive straight in by talking about my recent discovery of New Zealand based Gecko Press and their 'curiously good children's books from around the world'. I came across a couple of their picture books last week and I’m so excited that such a publisher exists. Gecko Press translates books from around the world which brings a whole new wave of picture books to the english language. The books published by Gecko are ‘quirky’ in terms of the mainstream picture books being published in the U.K. and Ireland as we tend to veer heavily towards the cute and cuddly and quite innocuous ilk of picture flat. There is however, a strong trend throughout the rest of Europe, Scandanavia and Asia of using picture books to illustrate weightier issues through both text and visuals and their interaction. This excites me greatly because I think it’s innovative and vital and also because it cultivates visual literacy which I feel is greatly overlooked in these parts.

You can find out more about Gecko Press here http://www.geckopress.co.nz/default.aspx

‘Duck, Death and the Tulip’ by Wolf Erlbruch is a beautiful and strange picture book which deals with death in a warm and sensitive way. Childrens Laureate Anthony Browne says “Duck, Death and the Tulip by Wolf Erlbruch is a superb picture book from Germany, that tells a gentle story of the relationship between Death and a duck. Death is portrayed as a sympathetic figure in a dressing gown who is with us all the time, but who only comes into Duck's consciousness towards the end of his life. It is warm, poignant and witty.”





Also published by Gecko Press is ‘Selma’ by German illustrator Jutta Baur who recently won the Hans Christian Andersen Award. The awards are presented by IBBY (International Board of Books for Young people) to “a living author and illustrator whose complete works have made a lasting contribution to childrens literature”. Which brings me to the author who won this years prize; David Almond. David is one of my favourite living children’s authors and I’m particularly fond of his collaborations with British illustrator Polly Dunbar namely, ‘My Dad’s a Birdman’ and just published, ‘The Boy Who Climbed Into The Moon’.




Both are published by Walker Books and are well worth a look-see.
http://www.walker.co.uk/home.aspx