In the Forest

Still looking for more rain-enthusing suggestions? How about a lovely little pop-up book about the rain forest?

Hey- maybe we can grow our OWN rain forest with this summer deluge! 

For the first time this year a mini-flock of about 5 green parakeets have taken up residence in next door's plum tree. They are obviously the first comers in what's going to become a mass move-in of poison dart frogs, sloths, monkeys and even toucans! Eddie will be delighted. Bill will also enjoy swinging on the vines and I will be released from any further worries about weeding or slug attack; enjoying the bounty of tropical fruit trees rather than the occasional handful of wizened and mildewed blackcurrants.

Whilst we wait for the canopy to grow (about 6 weeks or so I'm guessing?) we can continue to enjoy 'In the forest' by Anouck Boisrobert and Louis Rigaud; the team also responsible for the wordlessly charming 'Popville'.

Pretty, pretty prettiness with an ecological conscience; the book opens with a beautiful representation of a flourishing rain forest complete with parrots, toucans, a hiding sloth and various other little brown animals and figures. As you turn the pages of the book however, the influence of digger wielding, deforesting man starts to eat away at the pop-up vista until all that is left is one solitary tree to which the hopeful sloth still clings.

Hope, seeds and rain spring eternal thankfully. At the end of the book you get to pull a little tab and make new shoots appear and in the final spread a magnificent forest has grown once more. It's a simple conceit and a well worn message but so refreshingly presented it's irresistible. There's a 'Where's Wally' element in addition to the pop up glories in spotting all the hiding tiny creatures. I like to be able to play while I'm being educated and so, unsurprisingly enough, do my children.

When did pop-up books get so cool? I am linking this post to Child Led Chaos's Friday Pick blog hop whose own post this Friday 13th is funnily enough about Jan Pienkowski's 'Haunted House'; about the only pop-up book I do remember from childhood. I never had my own copy and always felt slightly cross about having to play with other people's already broken ones. Ah, it's so nice to be a grown up and get to play with a whole new generation of clever paper engineering first.

'In the Forest' by Anouck Boisrobert and Louis Rigaud, story by Sophie Strady, pub.Tate isbn 978-1-84976-071-3

Jim

Reciting Hillaire Belloc's Cautionary Tale: 'Jim who ran away from nurse and was eaten by a lion' was a party piece of mine when younger. As part of some volunteer action with the Girl Guides we occasionally toured Old Peoples' Homes and put on a bit of a 'show': My recitations came somewhere in between singing in rounds and  the passing about of home made peppermint creams. We probably helped loosen the will to live of several.

It may have been an unconscious desire to give me a dose of what she had had to endure (I had to practice for those Old Folk after all) that my lovely stepmother gave Eddie and Bill a copy of Mini Grey's pop up transformation of 'Jim'. She couldn't have known how effective it would prove. Whether it's a genetic propensity that draws them to it or whether Belloc is just very catchy indeed, recitation skills are alive and blossoming in the house.

The poem is, I have to say, the perfect vehicle for Mini Grey's dark and anarchic rich illustrative humour. Poor pallid and weedy Jim is force fed treats, cramped onto tiny trikes, bored stupid by repetitious stories and neglected by his flirtatious nurse. His race towards the lion looks like a break for the blessings of oblivion in an overly trammeled existence. At any rate, neither he nor we seem to mind too much about his inevitable demise. Bill and Eddie gleefully open the flap revealing the disappearance of his body with just bloodied ankles, arms and head remaining. Not a pop up for a sensitive child admittedly: I've not looked at the reviews on Amazon but suspect there will be some horrified buyers sending back this abusive filth. Thankfully, my two aren't big on sensitivity; they LOVE the book.

The details of the pop up make the book as much a treat for the adult reader, a map of the zoo opens up to reveal a comprehensive set of rules to enjoy:
'No winking, no blinking,drinking,stinking or thinking.
No clapping, slapping, napping, tapping, flapping or yapping.
No yowling, howling, or prowling.
Don't try anything clever.'
A neat head shaped urn is lightly dusted at the end whilst Jim's controlled parents' dab their eyes with very mild regret.

 A great choice of bedtime story at the end of a day when your own feelings about the benefits of parenthood may be running ragged: It gives you a brief glimpse of a vicarious alternative future and your children a little reminder to count their blessings. Once you've both enjoyed your separate frissons of delighted horror everyone can go to bed united, happy that there are no lions outside the door.

 And here is Eddie's Christmas recitation with accompanying upstaging by Bill for those that don't know the full poem. Apologies because I did once post this link before, but in a ham fisted way with no review or context so wanted to do the book justice now. It is shameful Proud Mummy parading but he's not going to be cute for much longer so I hope you'll indulge me.

'Jim- a Cautionary Tale' by Hillaire Belloc and Mini Grey, published Jonathan Cape
isbn 978-0-224-08367-6

Pop up Charlie

Eddie my younger son has a long history of sleeping with books. His first obsession was with Lucy Cousin's 'Hooray for Fish' to which I shall certainly give proper consideration at some point. He carried it around with him like a comfort blanket from about the age of 1 and snuggled up to it (along with his purple magnetic letter S -but that's another story) in bed. He now sleeps surrounded by a tower of books on all sides and I worry slightly that I will find him crushed one morning like the princess's pea under a layer of hardback picture books. He favours a weighty tome. I worry even more since my husband read a history of Chairman Mao which revealed that he had a specially constructed bed on a slant to cope with the weight and amount of books that he too liked to sleep with, but Eddie's similarity to Chairman Mao hopefully will end there...

His current obsession (he goes in for obsessions) is Roald Dahl and particularly a beautiful new pop up version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that I knew had his name on it as soon as I saw it in the bookshop. Quentin Blake in 3D! Hooray! Finally it is possible to almost literally (almost- mind) enter that chocolate factory and dive after Augustus Gloop into the river should you wish to.

Eddie holds the page open where the chocolate factory gates spring up to you and presses his nose up to them in much the same way as a starved Charlie Bucket. He also enjoys unwrapping a chocolate bar within and revealing his own golden ticket again and again.

The text is abridged but not to the point of desecration; obviously purists should have the original as well. The pop up tricks are fabulous; illustrations extending round the back of the book, and robust enough to cope with the treatment he has been meting out to it daily. My particular favourites are the pull tags with which you can help the bad children along to their fate, eg. rolling the violet Violet as giant blueberry along or tugging the appalling Veruca down the chute. Pulling them out makes the children disappear and reveals the Oompa Loompa's song of their downfall. Most satisfying.

The final page has the Great Glass Elevator shooting out the top of the book just like breaking through the factory roof. I hope they make the sequel now...but feel a frisson of fear at what those paper artists might do with the Vermicious Knids...

This was Eddie's choice to take into school on 'take a toy to school' day. It's also part of the bed tower...the highest accolade he can award.

I have just edited out photos I took where the smears of chocolate beetroot cake can be seen on the kitchen worksurface..but maybe I should have left them in for authenticity. Must clean kitchen worksurface now.

'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Pop-Up Book' Roald Dahl, illustrated by Quentin Blake and designed by The Story Works, pub. Puffin, isbn 978-0-141-32887-4