Picture books: Niamh Sharkeyon Frank McCourt's foray into children's literature and other delights
Every parent knows that children love playing in cardboard boxes. You can leap into an imaginative world of pirates, firefighters and astronauts! Antoinette Portis celebrates this in her first picture book, Not a Box (HarperCollins, £10.99). This book even smells like a cardboard box. It has a brown paper cover with a simple rabbit drawn in black ink beside a blank inked rectangle. The title, Not a Box, is printed in capitals in bold red ink. This deceptively simple book is beautifully designed. Portis dedicates her book to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes. The text questions the rabbit on the readers' behalf. "Why are you sitting in a box?" The rabbit answers back, "It's not a box." And so begins a dialogue between the reader and the rabbit. Not a Box celebrates the joy of making the ordinary extraordinary.
Polly Dunbar's Penguin (Walker Books, £10.99) has proved a hit since its publication. Ben rips open his present. There is a penguin inside. Penguin won't talk. Ben tries in different ways to make Penguin talk. He sings, pulls faces, blows a raspberry at him; he even fires Penguin into outer space! Still Penguin doesn't say a word. Penguin has a vacant curious expression. Dunbar's artwork is joyful, her line work and characterisation evoke the early work of Maurice Sendak. Her lion is similar to Sendak's lion in Pierre, A Cautionary Tale. Watch out though, this book comes with a warning - it could bite!
It is wonderful to see an illustrated novel for the older reader. David Almond's My Dad's a Birdman (Walker, £8.99) is for readers of eight years and over. It's an unusual tale of how Lizzie and her dad are coping with the loss of Lizzie's mum. A lot is left unsaid, and the action focuses on their participation in the Great Human Bird Competition. Dad thinks he is a birdman and can be found hopping around the garden, flapping his home-made wings and slurping down wriggly worms!
Polly Dunbar draws the cast of eccentric characters with panache. One particularly endearing illustration is of Lizzie and her dad sitting in a nest holding an imaginary egg. The nest is made from a collage of coloured papers. Almond's writing is zesty and full of humour, though underneath the humour is a real sense of loss, and of how Lizzie and her dad struggle to come to terms with that loss.
One of my favourite author- illustrators is Mo Williams. His new book, Leonardo the Terrible Monster (Walker , £10.99), is fantastic. Mo Williams used to write scripts for Sesame Street. It shows. He has spot-on comic timing and he tackles issues that are right on the nose for the preschooler: potty training, the loss of a beloved toy, and monsters. His characters too are very appealing to children. Leonardo looks hilarious, he resembles a toddler dressed up as a monster! But Leonardo is a terrible monster; he is not scary at all. Leonardo has a great idea, he will find the most "scaredy-cat kid in the whole world . . . and scare the tuna salad out of him!" The humour is matched by a real understanding of how a picture book works. Williams creates great page-turning moments. He uses a large book format, a bold typeface evocative of those used in old theatre posters, and he sketches in nostalgic brown inks.
If you have a child with lots of fears then Emily Gravett's Little Mouse's Book of Fears (Macmillan Children's Books, £10.99) is for you. "Living with fear can make the bravest person feel small," is the book's opening sentence. A beautifully rendered, expressive mouse nibbles the page, and confronts his fears, which are very similar to those of a young child. Gravett draws with a casual, loose line and she uses mixed media cleverly. Collage, cut-outs, nibbled pages, a fold-out map of the "Isle Of Fright" are all rendered in the most expressive way. A series of time-lapse Polaroids of the mouse getting sucked down a plughole illustrates "ablutophobia", fear of bathing. There is also space left for the reader to draw in their own fears. Gravett's sense of humour and these intricate details make this book a delight to pore over.
David Lucas's poetic voice makes The Robot and the Bluebird (Andersen Press, £10.99) sing. It tells the tale of a robot with a broken heart. He ends up on a scrap heap because no one can repair him. As the first snow falls, the robot is visited by a small bluebird flying south. The bluebird is tired and can travel no further. The robot offers shelter in the "space where my heart used to be". The bird fills that empty space with a fluttering, a singing, and a beating. The bird is exhausted and does not know whether he can make the rest of the journey alone. The robot doesn't want the bird to leave. The robot carries the bird in his heart over frozen wastes and over towering mountains. Lilting cadences give this tale a lightness and a fairytale touch reminiscent of Oscar Wilde, but with a Burtonesque twist.
It is quite unprecedented to publish Frank McCourt's Angela and the Baby Jesus (Fourth Estate, £12.99) in both adult gift and children's editions.
Two illustrators take on the project. Loren Long illustrates the adult version in a small and square format. McCourt recounts a story about his mother, Angela. When she was six she took the Baby Jesus from the Christmas crib home with her as she thought he looked so cold. Long paints in a limited palette of blues, greys and browns capturing McCourt's blend of awe, gritty realism and humour. It is not often that you see a Baby Jesus thrown over a garden wall! Raúl Colón illustrates the version for younger readers (Harper Collins, £12.99). He uses an unusual technique of building up washes on watercolour paper, "etching" the paper, then adding coloured pencils and finishing with litho pencil. This effect creates a soft texture with a scratched surface. He focuses on the children's faces and creates a warmer world illuminated by pools of yellow light. How wonderful for readers of all ages to have a choice of two beautifully illustrated versions.
What a shame not to have one of the versions illustrated by an Irish illustrator. McCourt's text would have married wonderfully to the illuminating art of PJ Lynch.
A last mention to Mini Grey's The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon (Red Fox, £5.99), which was the winner of the Kate Greenaway Award. It's now out in paperback and this book was repeatedly requested by my three-and-a-half-year-old son.
It is charming and very different; the writing is inventive, the illustrations illuminating and full of sparkly humour.
Niamh Sharkey is an author and illustrator. Her new book, Cinderella, will be published next year