Bookseller blurb: Clara has gone to the park, but there's nobody to play with. She finds an umbrella on the ground and does a good deed by putting it on a bench. The umbrella says 'thank you' and invites Clara to make a wish. So unfolds a magical chain of events featuring a new friend, an elephant, musical butterflies and a naughty fox who learns his lesson.
I have begun to explore books from The Empathy collection. The Umbrella is a title from the 2021 collection. This book also won The Queen's Knickers Award. The library I visit each week takes the trouble to add stickers to the front of their books to show awards like this - it is so helpful.
About the Queen's Knickers award: This new award has been endowed by Nicholas Allan in order to promote books which take risks and have a bit of edge. Some of his own titles such as THE QUEEN'S KNICKERS and JESUS'S CHRISTMAS PARTY were banned when they first came out but are now classics. His new prize calls for books that 'strike a quirky, new note and grab the attention of a child, whether this be in the form of curiosity, amusement, horror or excitement.'
'This quirky book takes a familiar folktale trope - the object of power, capable of granting wishes to the righteous - and plays with it, forging its own eccentric and appealing path through a landscape that feels fresh and new. Arevalo Melville's illustrations are confident to be themselves and don't talk down - there's no hint of the cute and cuddly in this book, despite its subject-matter, and children will be pleasantly challenged as well as entertained.' BOOKS FOR KEEPS MAGAZINE
Children need to be exposed to reality and work out boundaries for themselves. Although UMBRELLA is about magic and generosity, it also shows that everyone can go wrong and have a moment where they are rained upon - but may then stop and think of a new and better way to carry on.
Other awards:
- Nominated for the Greenaway Award
- Selected as a White Raven, by the International Youth Library
- A DPictus '100 best Children's Books at Frankfurt 2019' and '100 Outstanding Picture Books spring 2020 selection'
The author illustrator of this book comes from Guatemala. Here is a video of the author reading her book.
You could create a really terrific mini theme around magical umbrellas. My friend from Kinderbookswitheverything has some ideas in this blog post.
And I am very keen to see this new book published in 2023:
And this one too from 2020 which is about the invention of the umbrella.
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