Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »

Little details and small moments help bring these beautiful picture books to life, writes NIAMH SHARKEY

I READ Louise Yates’s Dog Loves Books(Jonathan Cape, £10.99) to my children, Oscar and Aoibhe, the three of us curled up cosy on their bottom bunk. The endpapers open with watery blue inky portraits of all sorts of dogs looking quite dazed. We meet Dog on the opening spread. He really loves books. He even runs his own bookshop. I also love books, so I know how he feels. What a wonderful passion to pass on to small readers! This is a simple but heartfelt celebration of the power of imagination and the simple happiness that books can bring us all, young and old. The closing endpapers feature the same dogs reading books about sausages and collecting slippers.