Saturday, March 7, 2020

One Fox: A counting book thriller by Kate Read



This beautiful book is SO MUCH MORE than a counting book. Here is the trailer from Macmillan. Look at the sub title - "thriller". There is some real drama and tension in this story. Next look at the end papers. One filled with fox foot prints and one with colourful chickens.

Here is some of the text:

1 One famished fox
2 Two sly eyes
3 Three plump hens
4 Four padding paws
5 Five snug eggs

Look at those wonderful words - famished; sly; plump; padding; snug.  There is also some perfect alliteration - famished fox; six silent steps; frightened fox. You can see Kate Read has included the numeral and the word and on each page there are several things to count which make this a book you can revisit again and again.

Now take a look at those sly eyes:


The illustrations in this book are so bright. Your young reader will want to reach out and touch the collages. Some pages have a bold black background and on the page with four padding paws the paws are nearly all you can see with the illustration placed right at the top of the page. You can almost hear the footsteps.





The last page of this book is sure to make every adult who shares this book with a young child roar with laughter!

One Fox is on the 2020 Klaus Flugge longlist and also nominated for the Children's Book Prize from Waterstones. "The Klaus Flugge Prize is awarded to the most promising and exciting newcomer to children’s picture book illustration. It honours Klaus Flugge, founder of publisher Andersen Press and a supremely influential figure in picture books."



Lovely, potent, brightly colored illustrations in a combination of textured collage and paint against white space transition to a dark, moonlit backdrop. Kirkus

It would be good to follow this book with Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins and for children who want to explore collage you could pick up a selection of books by Eric Carle.

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