Picture books: picks from our latest newsletter

Some picks from our May Picture Books newsletter:

         

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Have you read any of these books? If so, we’d love your feedback!

 

Picture books: picks from our latest newsletter

Some picks from our April Picture Books newsletter:

    

Subscribe to our newsletters and get our latest titles and best picks straight from your inbox.

Have you read any of these books? If so, we’d love your feedback!

 

Picture books: picks from our latest newsletter

Some picks from our March Picture Books newsletter:

   

   

Subscribe to our newsletters and get our latest titles and best picks straight from your inbox.

Have you read any of these books? If so, we’d love your feedback!

 

Picture Books: picks from our latest newsletter

Some picks from our February Picture Books newsletter:

 
 
 

Subscribe to our newsletters and get our latest titles and best picks straight from your inbox.

Have you read any of these books? If so, we’d love your feedback!

 

Picture Books: picks from our latest newsletter

Some picks from our December Picture Books newsletter:

Subscribe to our newsletters and get our latest titles and best picks straight from your inbox.

Have you read any of these books? If so, we’d love your feedback!

 

What’s new in picture books

Here’s a selection of titles from November’s Picture Books newsletter.

Subscribe here to get it delivered to your in-box each month.

 

Picture books: picks from our latest newsletter

Some picks from our October Picture books newsletter:

Subscribe to our newsletters and get our latest titles and best picks straight from your inbox.

 

Words and pictures

There’s a few things in the library that we librarians have a love-hate relationship with.  Sophisticated picture books are one of those things. Clearly, we love books – did I mention we are librarians? And clearly we also love order (librarians!).

And sophisticated picture books (you know, those over-sized books you find in the kids’ area, which look like picture books, but are way too grown-up for your average three year old) are truly things that inspire both love and hate in many of us. Well, in me, anyway. These books are big. Picture book big. But we classify them as children’s fiction, and so we have to find creative ways of shelving them in areas where they tower over their tiny brothers and sisters, lurk at the ends of shelves, get left in piles at the ends of rows, or even (gasp!) get hidden in the actual picture book bins. My librarian’s soul hates this uncertainty.

But oh! the books themselves. Given an unlimited budget and a house with an extra dimension to hold an infinite library, I would empty my wallet and fill my bookshelves with these works of art.

Tohby Riddle, Colin Thompson, Gary Crew, Shaun Tan, Dave McKean, Ben Templesmith: all artists who have the gift not only of art but of language.  Sometimes they write and illustrate, sometimes they team up with others to create books that truly transcend boundaries.  [Insert drivellingly adoring comment about the partnership between Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean].

Most of the time these books end up in the children’s area, but sometimes the content is just too grown-up for this, and you have to go exploring a bit further. Gaiman and McKean often end up with the adult graphic novels, along with Templesmith, whose art is gloriously bloodthirsty in a hauntingly horror-filled mixed-media, overlaid transparency and watercolours kind of way; and Gary Crew and Shaun Tan can be found loitering in the teens’ section. Both Shaun Tan and Neil Gaiman’s works have been turned into astonishingly beautiful movies – we have The Lost Thing here in the library on DVD, and Gaiman’s Mirrormask can be found in places like Alice’s. Colin Thompson’s illustrations have been turned into jigsaws and you can buy Tohby Riddle’s signed artwork online.

Above all, though, you can find them here at the library. It would make me more than happy if you came and found these books and took them home with you. Not only will you too be able to share and appreciate the beauty of these works of art, but then I won’t have to worry about how to shelve them …

 

Picture books are looking good

Here are some titles that have been delighting me and my little reader.
Gorgeous illustrations, quirky stories, and loads of fun for both reader and readee. Enjoy!

 

Penguins, pencils and a room full of happy

I have a great view of the stage for this session – for one thing, the audience here is a lot shorter than previous ones; and I’ve also chosen to sit up the front – I am here to see Oliver Jeffers, critically acclaimed award winning author and illustrator of multiple bestselling picture books, and he’s going to be DRAWING. On stage.  Right in front of us.

New Zealand’s own award-winning graphic novel artist and author Dylan Horrocks introduces him. Oliver has chosen to tell us his bio using slides, and once again I have to make Choices – do I Write or do I Watch? Clearly I watch (and you can too, here, although we get to see some extra special bits here at the Festival that he’s added just for us). He talks his way through the slides, and as well as photos of him as a child, and some of his work, we also get to see lots of pictures of things people have sent him, from crocheted penguins, to crazy glasses, and frighteningly, an oversized, realistic model of a human heart. On a pedestal. The room is already full of Warm, and Happy, and by the end of what is, after all, just an introduction, we are all in love.  Everyone, including all the grownups, is wearing an identical goofy grin.

We are still wearing the grins an hour later as we leave. Thanks to an outstanding tagteam live drawing collaboration with Dylan, we now know

• how to draw a penguin
• what a Huey does when he wants to stand out from the crowd
• why you should be wary of sofas
• what the trailer for his new film looks like
• where his ideas actually come from
• whether he can, in fact, draw feet
• why you should always eat a cheese sandwich just before bedtime (special thanks to Dylan for this tip)
• whether he can not just make but also AIM a paper plane
• how to defeat a 20 foot tall giant banana with laser beams for eyes
• why eyebrows are the only thing you will need in life
• and finally, how to make an entire audience feel like we’ve been hugged by a giant penguin in a beanie.