Picture Book Month Day 22

 

Any list of favourite picture books just HAS to contain a book by master storyteller Margaret Mahy. I love and own so many of her books. I always included her picture books into my library program and I often recommended her middle grade novels to teachers and readers.  A couple of years ago I read one of Margaret's middle grade novels - The Dark Blue 100 ride bus Ticket. This is such an inventive story and one that has lingered with me.  It is sadly out of print but it would be a fabulous class read-aloud title for a middle primary level group.

Margaret Mahy wrote over 120 books and hundreds of short stories and poems. I talked about some of her stories here.  I cannot pick just one favourite picture book so I am going to suggest three:

Jam

The Man whose Mother was a Pirate

See the whole book here on a video reading

Kirkus Star review: Wickedly pointed; thoroughly amusing.

Why do I love to read these? They each have:

• Delicious use of words
• Inventive character names
• Off beat stories with a touch of magic and gentle humour
• Perfect illustrations - done by a range of famous illustrators
• Stories you can read over and over again

Thinking about illustrators - here are the famous names you will find when you look for picture books by New Zealand author Margaret Mahy. Helen Craig, Steven Kellogg, Margaret Chamberlain, Jonathan Allen, Polly Dunbar, Jenny Williams, Gavin Bishop, Sarah Garland, Wendy Smith.

Check out these Kirkus reviews of other books by Margaret Mahy:

The Man from the land of Fandango "The late Mahy's New Zealand syntax and humor are on fine display here, and young readers will wish that the Fandango man would appear more than once in 500 years. Wonderfully exuberant and completely delightful."

Down the Back of the Chair  "Dunbar’s delightfully loose illustrations in watercolor and cut paper provide a satisfying complement to Mahy’s poem, with whimsical creatures, juicy colors and lots of motion to match the kinetic energy of the text."

The Great White Man-eating Shark  "Mahy tells this "Cautionary Tale" in a quietly comic, deceptively simple style inspired by her usual marvelous dry wit."

I am up to day 22 and I am not in danger of running of out picture books to share here for Picture Book Month.  Take a look at this post from early in 2019 where I list some older and out of print treasures from my former school library.