How the Sun got to Coco's House by Bob Graham

"It had to start somewhere. While Coco slept faraway, the sun crept up slowly behind a hill, paused for a moment, seemed to think twice ... before it plunged down the other side and skidded giddy across the water."

Take a closer look at this wonderful sentence. The word choice is perfect with expressive words such as paused, plunged, faraway, giddy.  Now look at the length of the second sentence and the use of commas. This is a complex sentence. Bob Graham never writes down to his audience.

Here is a quote I read this week from Lauren Child - author the Charlie and Lola books.

"There’s not enough understanding of how sophisticated picture books can be,” said Child, ...“If we don’t understand that, then we don’t understand how amazingly sophisticated children are and that they think very deeply and powerfully about things. And we do them a disservice if we don’t see this.” Lauren Child (The Guardian)

The sun rises and, as a reader, Bob Graham takes us on the journey. We watch as the soft yellow of the sun's rays touch magical things and everyday things. It is caught in the eye of a whale and in the snowy footsteps of a young Jung Su. The delightfully named Lovejoy sees the sun outside the window of the plane as he flies through the skies to visit his grandmother. An old woman living in a tiny room has her shutters closed but we can see slithers of yellow where the shutters meet. Wild animals are woken by the sun and a young boy and his dad, perhaps in a middle eastern country, set off to the market at sunrise. How lovely to think of the sun glinting off the paper boy's bell until eventually the sun reaches Coco's house where, later in the morning, a group of kids can be seen making a snowman. Luckily this is the winter sun and so the snowman, on the final page, stands happily in a spot light of sunshine.

I am a huge fan of Bob Graham and I have talked about many of his books here in the blog. How the Sun got to Coco's House was published in 2015. When you read this book be sure to notice all the trade mark Bob Graham features - flocks of birds, rows of identical city houses, sky scrapers, teddy bears and at least one reference to another Bob Graham book - in this case it is Silver Buttons. 

It’s great to be able to count on something; readers can count on both the sun and (Bob) Graham. Kirkus star review

There's no drama here, no big events or extraordinary characters. Instead, we are offered a gentle, kindly look at life on our world, almost tender in its depictions of the many and varied ways life exists. The Book Bag

Even adults have difficulty understanding time differences around the world.  The very best book, in my view, on this topic is All in a Day: