How Cars Work

Anyone who gets talking to Eddie is soon going to get talking to Eddie about buses. As regular readers of this blog will know, buses are just a little bit important to Eddie right now.
(entire route of the 210 in both directions is tomorrow's treat for us...)
So inevitably kindly adults caught in a route interrogation conversation will ask the question, "Are you going to be a bus driver when you grow up then Eddie?"
Which sends him into a bit of spiral of panic and denial; "No. That would be too hard. I don't know how to drive. I'm just a child."
The idea that it is a skill he could be taught one day seems to be Dreaming the Impossible Dream.

I knew it was formenting in his brain though when I started finding him craning over the dashboard and crawling in the footwell of the driver's seat of the car on a regular basis, examining pedals and buttons and grilling me on their purposes. I am really not the person to grill on this subject beyond the basics. Eventually he admitted, "I need to learn to drive soon because when me and Ella M fly to Australia together I've said I'll drive the hire car." It was news to me that he was planning an imminent return trip to Oz with his 6 year old fiancee but I understood the pressure of responsibility he was feeling.

Enter 'How Cars Work; the interactive guide to mechanisms that make a car work' by Nick Arnold and Allan Sanders, part book, part cardboard meccano; a properly unpatronising primer in car engineering which is also a little bit tasty-looking.

The book has a removable peg board at the front and a back pocket full of numbered coloured cogs, levers and screws. Each page looks (in detail- this will really properly satisfy any budding engineer who wants to look under a bonnet) at a different aspect of a car's mechanics and then provides a plan to build a working example on the peg board. You get therefore to make and see how a piston moves, or the motion of a windscreen wiper or the principle of an accelerator in action amongst others. It's really very nicely done.

The making is reasonably technical, requiring the following of a plan and grid references and appropriate selection of parts. Eddie is not of the mindset to do it yet, Bill had a good play around. But Eddie does pore over the technical descriptions with a bright and beady eye. Hoovering up the knowledge he needs for a golden future on the buses.

I've started keeping the car keys hidden.

nice bit of suspension

Incidently in a week where there has been much discussion about the pros/cons of the Goldiebox range of toys to encourage girls into engineering, after their rather fun ad went viral, I think this book does a reasonable job of gender neutrality. The illustrations are just about evenly split between male and female drivers and the colour palette is not agressively 'blokey'. All you DO need to enjoy a read/play is an interest in how cars work.
Here's the Goldiebox ad if you've happened to miss it-

'How Cars Work' by Nick Arnold and Allan Sanders, published by Templar, isbn 978-1-84877-737-8

Maps

There are a lot of maps in this house.

For a start there's a magnetic map of the world in our hall with name magnets that we push around as friends and family go on travels like military planners. We really value friends who disappear to interesting destinations for months at a time for their magnet value. The small matter of not having them around to chat to matters not a jot in comparison. P and L who have spent the last five years in first Pakistan, then Zambia and now Burma get the gold star in this respect. We sponsor a child in South America solely for the benefit of that map really.

Then there are Eddie's beloved bus maps which wallpaper his room and are spread over his floor, doubling as Total Wipeout course obstacles when he's not studying their intricate poetry. As I type this I am readying myself for today's treat of travelling the entirety of the 102 whilst his brother is at a party. "I'm so excited!" says Eddie.

There is a substantial collection of books of maps too; both of the entirely practical variety- Pah I say to your Satellite Navigation Devices; I LIKE driving with an open book on my lap giving frantic glances down to where I should be going- and of the ancient and decorative. Basically, whenever I can't think of a present to buy the husband, which happens increasingly frequently as the years pass and I have given him everything, I buy him a mappy-type book. And it never fails to make him happy. He is happy with the mappy.

But best of all is this one which he has painted and is a work in progress on Bill's wall. It was supposed to be covered in 'things' by now. Alas an RSI-type collapse put a dramatic halt to is completion in the last few years but the husband's caterpillar slow recovery is marked by the new addition of St Basil's cathedral last week. The big red balls of the Total Wipeout course are set to adorn Argentina next...

Which brings me to 'Maps', a book of simply astonishing loveliness by Polish author/artists Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski and which formed part of Eddie's birthday book haul last month.

It's like Bill's wall but turned up to 11. Each double spread is devoted to a different country and crammed with illustrations incorporating not only the sights, but also the people, stories, food, animals and history of the place. All hand drawn with dizzying gorgeousness. It's LUSH this book is. Lush. Not a word I've used for a a good few years that but exactly what's required here. It's also big and thick papered and Proper. A coffee table book or rather in Eddie's case; a hot chocolate table book.


Just look at it-

See? SEE? Loveliness. (and excuse the photography which is extra specially poor today)

I like the 'facts' on the UK page which include 'The British are famous for their luxury cars' and 'Afternoon tea is a British tradition'. One rings truer to me than the other.

Have to admit it's the husband that has been appreciating this book even more than Eddie since it arrived; if in a slightly wistful I-would-like-to-be-fit-to-paint that way, poor lamb. But Eddie will get round to it. He's just rather hung up on another birthday book at the moment- his absolute best present that he would recommend to you ALL. It's the 2013 edition of 'The London Bus Guide- the routes, the buses, the garages, the companies' by Ken Carr.

I am fairly confident that it's 'Maps' you should be putting on your Christmas list though. Unless you prefer buses.

'Maps' by Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski, published by Big Picture Press, isbn 978-1-84877-301-1

Book of Beasts

I think I may have mentioned before my complicated relationship with a book called 'The Unexplained' that could be found in Cambridge Central Children's Library in the late 70s. I never actually took it out of the library; it was far too scary. I nerved myself up to read snatches of it only within the safety of the book shelves. Having spent 20 minutes or so sidling up to it via the library's tub of old Beanos and Dandys I would feel brave enough to tackle what Lay Within:
First  the ho-hum every day Unexplained of the Loch Ness monster and the Abombinable Snowman (EXPLAINED as just a bear this week? pah.) then through the slightly spookier poltergeist and apparition section, and finally to the most terrifying part of all; the grainy photos said to show sites of spontaneous human combustion. Am I the only child to have spent a disproportionate amount of my pre-teen years worrying that I might spontaneously combust at any moment? If not then 'The Unexplained' has some explaining to do.

The 'Book of Beasts' by Giles Sparrow, illustrated by Colin Ashcroft and Lee Gibbons seems altogether softer stuff to me. But since we were sent a copy a week or two ago it has been exerting a strange pull on Bill who has been sidling up to read sections of it with slightly fake insouciance. Divided into five 'beast' sections including Monsters of the Gods, Shapeshifters and (personal favourite) the Undead, the book is a lavishly illustrated glossy guide to the fancies and foibles of a range of monstrous beings. Bill reads it over breakfast with a nervy laugh and occasional question. "Who would you rather fight Minotaur or Gorgon?" or "So...um..the Black Shuck...is that like real?" It's not too terrifying. There's a fair balance between humour, myth and helpful top fighting tips (make sure you're carrying bullets dipped in white ash if you're tackling a Skinwalker for instance). Plus frankly the swish full colour spreads can hold none of the fear of a small 1970s black and white photo of still smouldering slippers hidden in a dense page of text. The production values of this book are just too high for nightmares.

This is not in truth a book for me but I'm not who it's for either. Should you have an 8 yr old with a penchant for facts in top trump digestible chunks, zombies, Percy Jackson and ilicit watching of dodgy 'Slender Man' myth videos on Youtube they'll love it. Nicely done TickTock; Bill's a fan. He may even be ready for 'The Unexplained' next should you wish to reboot...

'Book of Beasts' by Giles Sparrow, illustrated by Colin Ashcroft and Lee Gibbons, published by TickTock. isbn 978-1-84898-896-5

With thanks to the publishers for a review copy. Our opinions are our own.

Pompeii

Ah Romans.
Romans, Romans, Romans.

For an empire that fell a pretty long time ago now they don't half exert a lot of influence over the Primary School curriculum.

Bill 'did' them last term. We made a mosaic together and I bought and got out of the library various Improving Books about Roman culture. The most popular of these from Bill's point of view was obviously the least outwardly 'improving': 'Diary of Dorkius Maximus' by Tim Collins and Andrew Pinder, an unashamed homage to Wimpy Kid which does a nice line in incorporating Horrible History-type Roman factoids into an enjoyable tale of the tribulations of ancient middle school. There's a sequel just come out and a third due next year and Bill will want to seek them out.

He'll especially want to seek out the third- 'Dorkius Maximus in Pompeii'. Romans are good and all, but Romans combined with explosions, death, destruction and metres of raining hot ash are SO much better. As soon as Bill heard that there was an exhibition all about Pompeii featuring REAL bodies (well real body cavities technically but who's fussing) he was very keen to go.

So off to the British Museum we went last week to explore 'Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum'. It was great, but from Bill's point of view undoubtedly heavy on the Life-side rather than the Death. He hadn't quite taken the point that most people were interested in what the eruption had managed to preserve rather than what it had destroyed. However we were all affected by the sight of the charred baby's crib and the small domestic details like a blackened loaf of bread or pile of figs. The dormouse fattening jar was pretty good too...

We also spent a long time looking at the items found with the bodies at Herculaneum- an insight into what people had chosen as their most precious possessions to run with. The melted, twisted keys were poignant. I asked the boys' what they'd have picked up. Bill went for the cat and his money and "Probably my sticks Mum. They're pretty special to me."

In the gift shop afterwards we bought Usborne's Young Reading 'Pompeii' by Karen Bell, illustrated by Emmanuel Cerisier. This takes the approach of fictionalising the stories of the different inhabitants of Pompeii as imagined from the artefacts they left behind. Bill enjoyed reading about Terentius Neo, the baker and his wife whose fresco we'd seen in the exhibition.

But by FAR the best book on the eruption- and actually one of the first non-fiction books that has really, properly engrossed Bill is an out of print volume we got out of the library called 'The Secrets of Vesuvius' by Sara Bisel. Sara Bisel is the archaeologist specialising in bones who was the first to examine the skeletons discovered at Herculaneum in the 1980s. The book is a beautiful balance of the painstaking science of excavation and the imaginative insights into real lives that excavation can reveal. Archaeology is COOL! It's written in a very accessible style- almost like a murder mystery, again with fictionalised sections-but with plenty of good science and good history within. Plus it has a lot of full colour photos of skeletons. Worth seeking out in your own library.

Because you're going to be doing the Romans too.

a trio of Roman recommendations

Absolutely regulation mosaic. You don't want to mess with our lantern-jawed Caesar

'The Secrets of Vesuvius' by Sara C. Bisel (OOP) pub. Hodder Headway, isbn 0-340-54352-3

'Pompeii' by Karen Ball, illus. Emmanuel Cerisier, pub. Usborne, isbn 978074606832-8

'Diary of Dorkius Maximus' by Tim Collins, pub. Buster books, isbn 978-1-78055-027-5

Going Wild

We're not a sporting family. The gene pool for physical co-ordination that I could provide for my children was always going to be pretty murky. I can't get a mug of tea to my lips without spillages and my instinct is to  flinch and run if anyone tries to kick, throw or bat a ball towards me. When Bill was about 3 I took him to the physiotherapist because he couldn't jump. Where all his friends were bounding off walls and sofas and flying high on trampolines, Bill would just crouch low and then stand up again with arms stretched up.
 "I jump" he would pronounce proudly with soles of feet still planted firmly on the ground.
 I'm not sure what I thought the physio would do- provide special insoles or a course of exercises or something. In the end she just looked at me pityingly and said, "There's nothing wrong. He's just slow to jump." My eyes were opened. 'Slow to Jump'. Of course he was; he was my child. It was a powerful early lesson in the futility of Tiger parenting and lucky for Bill that I learned it.

In the absence of much (capital letter) Sport, alternative activities must be embraced. We're good at vigorous cake mix stirring, Bill-Fu and Kitchen Gangnam Style but they're probably not enough for health and fitness. The sun has started shining properly again this week so it's time to embrace the Out-Of-Doors again and shift our bottoms from their respective comfy cushions. To nerve us up for that transition I did what I always do- I bought some books and then sat back down to read them.

'Go Wild' and 'Make it Wild' by Fiona Danks and Jo Schofield and 'Cook Wild' by Suzanne Fischer-Rizzi are the kind of books to inspire even the most committed comfy cushion lover to want to rush straight outside, build an open fire pit, coppice and lash their own sturdy sapling tripod and cook their own loaf of bread outside in a dutch oven. I say this with experience. That is exactly what the boys (particularly the grown up one) spent last weekend doing. There's also been some pretty furious whittling and frying up of nettles for crisps going on (all activity is better when accompanied by salty snack food after all). Treehouses are being modified and the lawn is suddenly covered with weaponry. Bill spent a proportion of Sunday rubbing ash over exposed areas and gaffa-taping together sticks and stones for caveman axes. He then only spoke in grunts for a few hours; preparing me for his teenage future.

The books are beautiful- full of inspiring photography of slightly feral kids doing slightly feral things. Some of the ideas are obvious but plenty are not: I'm looking forward to a session digging, making and wood firing our own river clay pots this summer for instance.

Of course, there's a limit to the amount of adventure you can have in your own back garden- if you are fortunate enough to have one at all. We are very fortunate to have space here and also to live in one of the leafiest, woodiest, greenest patches of London but it is still London. There's always people. So this weekend we're packing the dutch oven and the axes and heading out camping for a bit more Wild to Go Wild in.
I will still be packing some comfy cushions and plenty of books to read though...

Cooked Wild (ish) Dinner

FERAL! (the tomato soup adds a nice touch I think)

'Cook Wild; year round cooking on an open fire' by Suzanne Fischer-Rizzi , 'Make it Wild! 101 things to make and do outdoors' and 'Go wild! 101 things to do outdoors before you grow up by Jo Schofield and Fiona Danks are all published by Frances Lincoln isbn 978-0-7112-2939-6 for the latter.

Because we are going camping we are missing out on this Saturday's amazing looking Oxford Children's Comic Festival hosted by the incomparable Phoenix Comic. Don't YOU be so stupid. Find out more here.

And in other exciting Phoenix-y news. They have a brand new beautiful website being unveiled tonight at 6pm. It promises lots of shiny new features and (dangerously) a shop. Click on this after 6 tonight to enjoy.

Final other booky news. The Federation of Children's Book Groups are hosting a festival of their own in Birmingham in November and they have launched a competition to find an illustrator for a logo for the event. It looks like an amazing opportunity for someone to get their work seen by the Right People. If that might be you- have a look here to find out all you need to enter.

The Interactive Art Book

'The Interactive Art Book' by Ron Van Der Meer and Frank Whitford is an updated reissue of an art pop-up book that first appeared in 1998. Although that is some years before I became a parent I can remember playing with a well-used 'tester' of that first incarnation of the book in the National Gallery bookshop and feeling a bit sad that I had no excuse to buy it. I am very glad to have a proper turn with it now.

It's a kind of hop around the history and processes of making art in seven crammed spreads of fun. It includes pop-up explanations of perspective, construct your own abstract sculptures, plenty of flaps to lift and optical illusions to explore. This may sound pretty gimmicky and superficial but there's surprisingly complex information, and lots of it crammed in between the fun. I really enjoyed the 'Stories and Puzzles' page for instance with its 3D peephole version of Velazquez's 'Las Meninas'. You get to view the picture both as audience and as painter and then read the story round the outside about the sub text of its composition.

Of course Bill and Eddie are really only about the fun at this stage; fighting over the 3D glasses and spinning the phenakistoscope. But I can see this is a book that we'll return to and get different things out of as they get older. At the back of the book is a whole other paperback activity book with suggestions for do-it-yourself art. Bill was completely taken with the cartoons of Gustav Verbeek reproduced in this section; which must be read one way and then turned upside down to continue the story back again. He also really liked the idea of pictures as detective stories with hidden clues that can be interpreted. A more informed trip to the National Gallery may be called for.

My own first introduction to art masterpieces as a child was through repeated playings of an obscure board game called 'Masterpiece' where you had to auction reproductions of National Gallery favourites without knowing what worth they had been assigned. An early, apparently respectable and intellectually nourishing version of 'Deal or no Deal'; it featured a good variety of Great Works including Da Vinci, Manet and Vermeer. You can tell it was from a more innocent time because as I recall (Austin Powers like) the absolute, most amount of money a painting could be worth was £1,000,000.

I'd like to say playing Masterpiece nurtured a precocious artistic appreciation in me but all I can remember is staring at the picture cards and wondering why on earth would ANYONE pay money for a boring old Turner or Rembrandt.
You grow into some things.

Hopefully 'The Interactive Art Book' will help the boys see the point rather more quickly. In the meantime they're definitely enjoying practising their upside-down cartoon skills.

'The Interactive Art Book' by Ron Van Der Meer and Frank Whitford, pub. Tangopaper isbn 978-1-909142-02-2

Disclosure: We were sent a copy of the book by kindness of the publisher. Our opinions are our own.

Cool Science Tricks

So Super Keen readers may recall, that back in the Spring (remember that season of hope and light?... really?... it's the one with the warm globe in the sky and the green shoots in the ground and all being well it's due back soonish) The Fellow Reviewers and I had fun with a book by the Naked Scientists called 'Crisp Packet Fireworks'. This volume of exciting scientific excitements saw me getting drenched with coca-cola in the cause of physics, which pleased mightily two out of the three of us at least.
But the book was out of print. Always annoying but especially so when a book promises to be a long term reference for FUN.

All is not lost however because part of Bill's Christmas book haul was a similar variant on the theme called 'Cool Science Tricks- 50 fantastic feats for kids of all ages' by Daniel Tatarsky and we've had very similar levels of fun with it today.

We have hovered ping-pong balls above a hairdryer, watched different coloured hot and cold water mix and not mix together, persuaded our arms to levitate spookily, played with matches to make water move uphill, put a skewer through an inflated balloon, turned a film canister into a rocket, used our Jedi Mind skills to make a drinking straw rotate and made our own lava lamp.

IT HAS BEEN COOL.

I'd like to say we've all learn't a lot about Science too but to be honest the experiments have enthralled more than the (perfectly clear and well written) explanations: "Yeah, yeah Mum, whatever, still don't really get what a polymer is. What can we do next?"

An excellent little book for a snowy/rainy/poorly day (all of which we have seen rather too many of in recent weeks) of pleasurable indoor diversions.

hot on top

lava in full flow

straw bends to the will of the mindful

On the back of the book it lists its classification genre as 'Quirky Reference'. I haven't found that section of our library yet but I'm now having fun imagining what other titles it might be filed next to. Maybe; 'How to make your own mini interior zombie apocalypse', something else that we had fun with this week...

'Cool Science Tricks' by Daniel Tatarsky, pub.Portico isbn 978-1-907554-69-8

MonkeyFarts

I have a cold. I've had it for a while now and it's boring. I want it to go away. I shall probably take a Georgette Heyer to the bath soon and that will improve things. Georgette Heyer is an author I find unfailingly restorative. Restorative is itself a very Georgette Heyer word in fact.

Bill was off school with his own germs recently. It happened to coincide with the delivery to our house of a small volume called 'Monkeyfarts'; a joke book put together by David Borgenicht. It's fair to say that he found it quite as healing as any Regency Romance. He lay wrapped in a duvet on the sofa and proceeded to read me the entire book from cover to cover.: "Hur hur! Listen to this one Mum! And listen to this one! And this one! And this one!"

Now I can't say that hearing an entire joke book in one go is my idea of funny but I am not an 8 year old boy. Joke books are second only to Freaky Fact books in constituting Bill's Ideal Dinner Table Entertainment and he loves to share in a slightly life sapping completist fashion: They are more or less irresistible to him. I would suggest that they should also be the first call for anyone trying to sneak some reading into an unsuspecting refusenik; although be prepared to have to listen for a Long Stretch.

Having said that, 'Monkeyfarts' is a pretty comprehensive and stylishly put together example of the genre; with a good mix of some old classics and some newbies. Bill particularly appreciated the Star Wars section, the Harry Potter section and, of course, the poo section.

I liked this one:
'What did one snowman say to the other snowman?
Do you smell carrots?'

So there y'go. 'Monkeyfarts': the poorly 8 year old's Georgette Heyer.

as for the Freaky Facts. Did you know that duelling is legal in Paraguay provided you are a registered blood donor? Neither did I until Bill told me so over his porridge bowl this morning. Useful stuff.

Monkeyfarts compiled by David Borgenicht, published Quirk books isbn 978-1-59474-605-5

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy by kindness of the publisher. Our opinions are our own.

Lego

Bill turned 8 this weekend (must update the side of my blog). He had a Lego party.

It was...tiring.

5 minutes in -craft activity ('pimp your lego mini figure')(I didn't use the word pimp in front of my children I should clarify)(although would have complemented Bill's question of last week- 'What's a prostitute mum?') that I thought might take 20 mins completed

8 minutes in -first child says to me 'I'm BORED- can I go on the skateboard (round the kitchen)?'

45 minutes into 2 1/2 hour party ALL games and activities from my Lego list finished and I started to look extremely rabbit in headlightish.

Honour salvaged by a LOT of slightly manic musical bumps 'Dance like robots!' 'Dance like girls!' 'Now dance like poos!' and an excellent impromptu 'how to really walk like a zombie' workshop from my husband (it's all in the chest position apparently; sticking your arms out stiffly just doesn't cut it any more).

Only one child received a golf ball in the side which may or may not have cracked a rib- and given we had an internal pinata happening that's really quite good going.

I felt like I had lived so many lifetimes by the end of the afternoon that I might have attained immortality.

lego head cake colonised by pimped-up guys

Lego is big news in this house. Although frustratingly both my children are really in it just for the mini-figures- and as any parent knows they make you buy a mighty big box of bricks to get the mini figure you're after. Sometimes I look at the large tupperware box of Lego rubble we have accumulated from sets that were built and then broke and run my hands through it weeping softly  and whimpering "hundreds of pounds in there... hundreds of pounds..."

ANYWAY.

Lego and books. A newish departure for them but obviously doing well as they seem to be bringing more and more out. I note the Book People now has an entire Lego shop section on its site.

They are definitely Bill's favourite non fiction and I'm pleased but also slightly baffled by the geeky pleasure he derives from his Harry Potter Lego Enyclopaedias.

"Hey mum! MUM!!MUM!!!" ...I run down the stairs..."What is it Bill?" "LOOK how many different hairstyles the Ron Weasley mini-figure has had since 2001!" "mmm gosh yes! that is a lot mm."

He also has the 'Lego Ideas' encyclopaedia. This is a nice coffee table type book even if you don't have kids featuring insights into the world of the professional Lego builder and inspiring photos of amazing constructions. Professional Lego builder was not, curiously, an occupation that featured heavily on the wall of careers choices at the nice all girls day school I attended and that's a shame I think. The book is fantasy though- when Bill and I go through it it's difficult to relate the spectacular images shown with things that we could have a go at ourselves. The 'You can build Anything' tag line should be accompanied by a caveat-' if you have a million plus bricks colour and shape sorted to hand'

Because what it doesn't do- and I rather wish it would- is provide some guidance on how to build the spectacular creations within its pages. The next Lego book I would like please is one that shows us how to sift through the rubble in a more meaningful way to make different chassis, aliens etc. Lego is so complicated and specific in its pieces now that once something has broken it can be very difficult to work out how to use it afresh.

Then the next Lego party I hold all I would need to do is give them the container and the book and they would happily construct quietly in a corner for the whole party....wouldn't they?

zombies

Doodle Cook

So what do you get for a boy who loves to cook and read but hates to draw or paint?

Hervé Tullet's 'Doodle Cook' that's what.

Remember these sculptures from the Pop-up festival?
Hervé Tullet did them in collaboration with local school children. They were sooo priddy.

I wish I'd discovered his GENIUS drawing books for my boys earlier in their non-drawing careers. Bill is now out of his non-drawing and painting phase and Really Quite Into It but he was held back for years through I think, impatience at his own lack of ability and a streak of perfectionism. For years he would only draw monsters not people; after all it didn't matter if monsters went a bit wrong looking.

Eddie will not even draw shonky monsters without inappropriately severe maternal pressure. His non-drawing stance is almost a religious vow. In a week where all the little girls in his class are coming in daily with elaborate thank you cards adorned with smiling princesses, unicorns, flowers and the like, I have had to bribe him with substantial quantities of chocolate to get him to even put a line on a piece of paper.

And yet...and yet...he DOES love to cook, so I fair leaped upon 'Doodle Cook' when I saw it. Would the temptation to make Zigzag Soup or Crayon Tartare provide a breakthrough?

Oh it's a faberoonie book. Each page offers instructions to make a different dish faced by a generous sized empty plate. Follow the step by step recipe and you too can produce your own perfect Hervé abstract. It's fairly specific in its demands which some may disapprove of, but for my frozen-in-the-spotlight-of-a bare-piece-of-paper child specific is GOOD. Eddie loves a list of instructions; that's his home turf. (his laminated 'shoe reminder card': 1. undo straps, 2. pull out tongue to make space, 3. put in foot and push heel down 4. do up straps and repeat with other foot revolutionised our school run earlier in the year).

It would be too much to say that he's learned to embrace the pen and crayon as yet but together we've 'cooked' a couple of pages in a relaxed and happy way which is a massive step forward. I, and more importantly he, begin to see a future that might involve artwork that isn't exclusively orange crayon on orange paper.

And I'm sure his teachers will love a slice of 'triangle cake' to eat whilst they admire the stack of perfect princesses...

'Doodle Cook' Hervé Tullet, pub. Phaidon isbn 978-0-7148-6070-1

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

This is the Way to the Moon

Another of the books that followed me home from the Nobrow shop and well timed because Zoe is hosting a space themed round up at Playing by the Book today. Hop on over if you need Space book tip offs- there's a great selection already building up (and I can't wait for the mini make-your-own book spin offs that will follow...)

M. Sasek's 'This is the Way to the Moon' was originally published as 'This is Cape Canaveral' back in 1963 and thus rather before anyone had actually found the way to the moon. This edition has been sympathetically expanded for a reissue since Sasek's death with additional illustrations by  Jessie Hartland which include an Apollo 11 footnote; enabling the slightly 'sexier' new title. I can see why they've done it but it barely seems necessary. The book reads as a charming period piece as it stands and it's not like bringing in the lunar landing makes it any more contemporary.

A friend remarked this weekend that the notion of going to the moon will seem as anachronistic to his kids as ocean liner travel and wind up wristwatches. I have to say its felt that way to me for most of my life anyway. This book, with its beautiful, intimate reproductions of 1960s newly space crazy America stands as a hymn to that bygone age.
M.Sasek's produced a series of travel guides for children throughout the 1960s and it's a great glory that they are currently being reissued. I have to say that whilst the London and New York ones have charm a'plenty there is an added layer of poignancy to this one somehow. With the last shuttle recently retired and (thankfully) the ending of the Cold War I suspect that Cape Canaveral may feel even more different to the 2012 visitor than four decades of change in London. Sasek's book is scattered with faithful versions of the proud signs that littered Canaveral. I like the grocery store with its motto 'Thru these portals walk the greatest missilemen in the world'.  Sasek's even handed commentary on the missile culture of Canaveral is a masterpiece of gentle but respectful eyebrow raised understatement. The model nuclear warheads display is reproduced with the heading 'A leaflet says:"The display lends itself especially well to family photography"'.

If this is all sounding more like a curiosity for the adult reader than an engrossing read for a child I suspect that might slightly be the case. On the other hand there is much detail beautifully expressed for any burgeoning space/bomb history nerd and a nice precis of the history of (US) space flight of the early 60s. Above all, as with all Sasek's books, it's a great combination of clear, non-patronising text and detailed whilst still idiosyncratic drawing all given space to breathe in an enticingly big and breezy lay out. Bill and Eddie have so far passed it over, but one of these days one of them will get their nose stuck in and drink it down appreciatively I'm sure. In the mean time I have it all to myself.

Space as our past rather than as our future.

'This is the way to the Moon' by M. Sasek,pub.Universe, isbn 978-0-7893-1842-8

The Art Treasure Hunt

Another beautiful art book today but of a completely different variety. 'The Art Treasure Hunt' compiled by Doris Kutschbach offers a kind of superior 'Where's Wally' approach to encourage deeper looking at a variety of classic pictures.

There are a few 'I Spy' type books around which use paintings I think but this is the trickiest and the most detailed I've seen; pitched at a slightly older audience than most. The art encompassed includes what you might term the usual suspects; Bruegel, Renoir and Rousseau but also a fair few less usual ones; representing a wide range of styles from Keith Haring to Indian miniatures and Egyptian hieroglyphs.

 In each painting we are given a range of objects or details to find and sometimes posed open ended questions to chat about too. I've had nice sessions with both of my fellow reviewers this week huddling on the sofa together scanning for tiny peacocks or women strumming lutes, or speculating on the likely advantages of keeping a pet monkey. A double spread of abstracts by Malevich and Delaunay which required apparently simple shape and colour spotting also stretched vocabulary understanding through using terms such as 'angular' which neither boy had come across before. Definitely a great addition to a school library: I took it in to use with the children I do reading practice with yesterday and found it a good mix of decipherable text and spotting 'reward'.

This is also a generously sized and lovely book to just hold and enjoy; the reproductions are of beautiful quality. I have to say I particularly enjoyed  examining the newly topical woodcut by Hokusai of crowds of people on a bridge under umbrellas watching a flotilla of boats pass by in the rain.There's a trio of properly coiffeured Japanese ladies at the front looking pretty peeved at the whole day out.
Everyone still gathering in armfuls of damp bunting knows exactly how they feel.

'The Art Treasure Hunt' by Doris Kutschbach pub. Prestel isbn 978-3-7913-7097-2

Faces

Right- children back to being entertained by their teachers and I have leisure to pillage their bookcases uninterrupted once more.
Phew.
But continuing on the theme from our day of furious crafting of Goof City I have a couple of lovely books about Art to waft temptingly under your noses today and tomorrow.

The first of these is the simply titled 'Faces' by the inspirational Zoe Miller and David Goodman. To be accurate with the truth I should say this is actually newly pillaged from the husband's bookcase, as it formed part of his birthday present yesterday.
He has been enjoying constructing plenty of faces and characters of his own from the pricey but thoroughly wonderful 'play shapes' made by Miller and Goodman; a previous 'wooden' anniversary present from me.This book seemed like an interesting complement.

'Faces' could be a coffee table book for adult contemplation, or a book to engage the smallest baby with their programmed hypnotic gravitation towards features. It's a series of photographs of faces constructed out of a huge variety of artfully arranged household objects including colanders, pebbles, dish brushes, gloves, vacuum bags, sports kit and more. Accompanied by a simple rhyming text it encourages you to playfully re-engage with the world about you. The art that has been created is sometimes as simple as the suggestion of a smile from the hanging handle of a bag or sometimes a much more complex and purposeful arrangement. All are joyful- a book to smile at and with.

And definitely inspiring. Bill pored over this book with great appreciation yesterday- you could almost see the possibilities being opened up to him. I found myself unable to go round a corner of my house without finding some newly transparent face of light fittings and windowsills say winking at me. I think inspiring without being either overwhelmingly didactic or off-puttingly complex is a pretty rare trick for an art book to successfully pull off and this manages it.
For Eddie, who presently HATES anyone putting a pen in his hand and expecting him to produce anything with it, the idea of making a picture just by manipulating fruit and crockery was also immediately liberating. He made himself a new friend which then accompanied him throughout the day:

'Faces' by Zoe Miller and David Goodman, pub. Tate isbn 978-1-85437-992-4