GOOD picture books are so crafted that it seems conceivable that either text or picture could exist without the other. Find a child and settle down to feast both eyes and ears.
Fur by Jan Mark with pictures by Charlotte Voake (Walker Books. £9.99 in UK) can be enjoyed by the very young baby up to the beginner reader. The text in large, beautiful print of just 42 words tells what happened when "Thin Kitty grew fat" and searched for a perfect nest - in hat cupboard and skirt - finally settling for the hat. "All night she purred" until we discover the hat full of fur - in the shape of four kittens.
We first meet Maisie - the heroine of Nothing But Trouble by Gus Clarke (Andersen, £8.99 in UK) on her way to bed, teddy under arm, mum following behind with bedtime book. "It had been a bad day for Maisie." From the gloriously sparse, deadpan text we learn of the nasty things Maisie has survived. If the text is a model of understatement, the pictures tell the real story - the chaos of family breakfast complete with burning toast and flying cornflakes. Several pages later we are told "Lunch was just awful" - and we witness the hapless Maisie opening her lunch box to find not sandwiches but baby's bottle, whilst her schoolmates shriek with laughter.
Finally Maisie is back where we first met her, and all our expectations are that that's the end. As mum murmurs of things being better tomorrow we turn the page to another day. "And was it?" For three pages it seems so. We last see Maisie's back as she heads off to school; and what we know, but Maisie doesn't, is that her skirt has been caught up in the back of her panties. A perfect picture book, funny, warm and full of the hiccups of real life.
Beautiful painterly pictures and wellbalanced text make up Ken Brown's Mucky Pup (Andersen, £8.99 in UK). Mucky pup banished by the farmer's wife sets out to find a playmate - but one by one the farmyard young reject him for being too mucky. A rhythmic pattern of responses delights the ear as the eye feasts on the beautiful pictures. The cockerel replies "Cockadoodledont be stupid", the ducklings tell him he must be "quack, quack, quackers". A satisfying ending begs a "read it again" request.
SIMILARLY painterly, but in a very different mood and for an older age group, is Mr Bear and the Bear by Frances Thomas, with pictures by Ruth Brown (Red Fox, £4.50 in UK). The story is set in a middle European town some time in the far distant past. Dominating the opening sequence and staring hard at us is the darkclad, hatted figure the locals call Mr Bear because he was "cross as a bear", whilst behind his back town urchins jeer and stick out tongues. The recluse sees a dancing bear perform in the town one day and, haunted by the memory of the animal's unhappy eyes and matted fur, determines to buy him and set him free. Thoughtful and thought provoking, both pictures and text beg to be read and viewed over and over again.