PICTURE BOOKS:These books let a child's imagination put animals in their place, writes Paddy O'Doherty
A FAMILY PET can be a very important part of a child's life and here cats and dogs are celebrated in two lovely rhyming picture books published by Orchard (£10.99).
Posy, by Linda Newbery and Catherine Rayner, is a cute tabby kitten, rendered adorable with Rayner's delicate touch of fine pen, watercolour and coloured pencil; an undefined edge gives the kitten's fur an almost tangible fluffiness.
Readers who enjoyed her award-winning Augustus and his Smile (2006), a beautiful first book about a tiger, will not be disappointed with this tiny feline. Rayner's compositions, colour choices and use of white space make this an exceptionally beautiful book. The rhyming text from established writer Linda Newbery in her first outing into picture books, is simple, careful and clever. It describes Posy's cheeky and inquisitive antics with humour and word play.
I Don't Want a Posh Dog by Emma Dodd is a fun picture book about the joys of having an ordinary mutt. Its large, simple black outline illustrations against pastel backgrounds depict a sweet little girl with various pedigree dogs: a bejewelled poodle, a fluffy puppy in a handbag, etc, but this little girl prefers her "not too proud or loud dog. A know-me-in-the-crowd dog".
The text is a rhythmic rhyming one and needs to be read aloud at a page-turning pace for full effect. This humorous book for young dog lovers could help bring about a love of words too.
With tiny chicks and cygnets on most ponds and canals around the country, this is the perfect season to introduce a child to an egg book, and Emily Gravetts latest creation, The Odd Egg (Macmillan, £10.99) is one to treasure. All the birds have laid eggs, except Duck, who finds an unusually large white one with green spots.
Gravett enjoys playing with text and form and this A4 landscape-shaped book allows for a series of six overlapping pages of varying sizes where eggs of different sizes crack and chicks emerge. But Duck has to wait . . . Gravett's soft pencil and delicate watercolours are simple and full of humour. If you're not yet familiar with the work of this prize-winning illustrator, check out Wolves, Monkey and Me and Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears. The Odd Egg is a beautifully produced book with an attractive green cloth binding on this hardback edition.
To recreate the night-time world in Molly and the Night Monster (Jonathan Cape, £10.99) Chris Wormell has chosen to use just one inky blue watercolour throughout. The effect is visually dramatic and allows the reader to enter Molly's scary night-time thoughts. Each page contains a single large square image surrounded by a white border with blue text running along the bottom. The right page is Molly's bedroom, the left is the landing and stairs. This clever format allows the centre galley to represent the safe divide of the bedroom door.
In the picture on the right we see Molly, wide-eyed in wonder and fear, waking up then creeping closer to the door while on the left page we see what she imagines: a threatening shadow becomes a gigantic crocodile with sharp teeth, a huge hippo, or worse, a night monster coming to gobble her up. Wormell paints beautifully: both people and large hairy and scaly animals.
This story will scare just a little (the animals are enormous but benign), and reassure, with its delightful happy ending.
Hannah Shaw has created a wonderfully nasty character in Evil Weasel (Jonathan Cape, £10.99): "He was a bully and a sneak" and truly dislikeable. But he soon learns that "being rich and powerful isn't much fun when there's no one to impress".
This book is perfect for the 4-7 age group who enjoy being read to, but also love to go it alone, figuring out the words by themselves.
The text is quirkily distorted and varied, as if a magic magnifying glass were passing over it, and there are lots of other interesting reading opportunities in signs, labels, ads - and invitations, one of which states: "I am very rich and important, so don't be late". Shaw's bold, colourful illustrations are packed with humorous detail, which means young readers will come back to this book again and again.
Paddy O'Doherty is a freelance writer and editor. She is a former editor of Inis, the magazine of Children's Books Ireland and was administrator of the CBI Bisto Book of the Year Awards 2007