Love, Z by Jessie Sima

The cover of this book really caught my eye. As you can see there are seven robots and a sailor cat. Look closely and you can see each robot has a letter - ALMFYI and Z. The meaning of this is revealed at the end and it gave me a huge smile.

Little Z is out exploring when he stumbles on a bottle and yes inside the bottle is a message. The message is smudgy but Z can read - "Love, Beatrice". 

"The young robot did not know what 'love' meant or who 'Beatrice' was, but they felt important."

No one in the robot family can help with these questions so Z heads off in search of answers and it is Captain Cat on the cover who helps him/her/them on the way. You might think of a book like Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge - various people and animals and children supply answers but all of this is so confusing. 

Love is butterflies. Love is sweaters. Love is lawn gnomes. Love is a million puppies. Love is snowflakes on my tongue.

Captain Cat and Z continue their voyage and eventually they chance upon a small island. It is a wonderful moment when a kindly lady opens the door to her small cottage and she tells the travellers her name is Beatrice! Z and Beatrice talk about love. Love is warm, cozy, safe and you will know it when you feel it. But Z is still confused until the final scene ...

There is some controversy about Jessie Sima here in NSW because she is the author of Spencer's new Pet a book that the NSW English unit writers have featured for ES1 or Kindergarten. That should be okay I guess but here in Australia this US picture book - Spencer's New Pet is very expensive and while it is a fun example of a wordless book, especially I would suggest for a preschool aged child, there are so many other books teachers could use to fulfil the syllabus outcomes. The problem comes when some teachers, many new to the profession, feel unable to alter or modify a unit of work even though, at this stage, these units are just suggestions - they are not mandatory. Meanwhile cash strapped schools and schools with small library budgets are struggling to purchase this book like Spencer's New Pet especially when some schools demand multiple copies. I've seen Spencer's New Pet listed between AUS$30 and AUS$43. Anyway all of that to one side I did enjoy Love, Z. 

Here is the web site for Jessie Sima with a list of all her books. 

Meet the illustrator Gerda Muller

 

Gerda Muller was born in 1926 in Naarden, the Netherlands. She studied at the Fine Arts School of Amsterdam and École Estienne of Paris. Gerda has illustrated over 120 books for children, many of which have been translated worldwide. Her book A Year in our New Garden appeared on the USBBY Outstanding International Books list. Gerda Muller lives in France.

Gerda Muller works across a wide variety of mediums and uses diverse techniques when illustrating. For precise line work, she typically works with black and sepia pen, using watercolours to add colour and detail. Her picture book illustrations have also made use of coloured pencils, oils, lithography and more recently, pastels.  Gerda Muller is known for her love of nature and natural scenes. Her illustrations are vibrant, detailed, and reflect the changing seasons and landscapes. Floris Books

Illustration from The Wildwood Elves

The lives of her subjects seem slower, more deliberate, and more joyful than do those of some of us in the modern world, as they happily progress through the seasons caressing baby animals, splashing in the sea, gatherin acorns, and catching snowflakes on their tongues. Monadock Mamma

On a snowy winter's morning, footprints trace a path from a child's unmade bed, past discarded clothes and breakfast dishes to the front door where they're joined by excited pawprints. But who else is making the footprints and what are they doing? In this delightful wordless picture book, the story of a child and a dog enjoying the snow is told entirely through following their footprints.

The Doll People by Ann M Martin and Laura Godwin illustrated by Brian Selznick

"Outside the dollhouse, in Kate's room and beyond, everything changed. Little girls grew up and had little girls of their own, people left the house and went to work or on vacations. History was made. Things happened. But inside the dollhouse, not much happened, as far as Annabelle was concerned. The only important event in her entire, one hundred-year life was that Auntie Sarah had disappeared."

This quote from the second page of The Doll People gives me a good way to talk about the plot of this delightful page turner. The setting is a dollhouse owned by the Palmer family. The current child owner is eight year old Kate. The seven dolls in the house - note once there were eight dolls - are old and fragile but Kate plays with them carefully. Her much younger sister Nora, on the other hand, is rough and careless especially when she invades the dollhouse with her collection of farmyard pet toys known as the Rancher Family. All of this is terrifying for Mama, Papa, Annabelle, Bobby, Uncle Doll, Nanny, and Baby Betsy.

Luckily the parents have noticed Nora's interest in the dollhouse, so they buy her a brand new very modern dollhouse for her birthday. The Funcrafts are a family of plastic dolls - mum, dad, Tiffany, Bailey and Baby Britney. This new dollhouse has a patio, a BBQ, a microwave oven (although it is pretend) and even a computer. The Doll family have no idea about any of these things. They have a piano, a rocking horse and a 1933 set of National Geographic magazines.

When Annabelle meets Tiffany her life changes. Now she has a friend and even better together they can solve the mystery of Aunt Sarah who has been missing for 45 years but this means they will need to leave the dollhouse and explore downstairs and upstairs and even the attic all the time careful to avoid the family cat named The Captain. Oh and there are terrible consequences if any of the dolls are seen by the humans.

When I spied this book at a recent charity book sale I was so intrigued. I have loved other books (not Babysitters Club) by Ann M Martin but what really caught my eye was the name Brian Selzick illustrated of Hugo Cabret, Wonderstruck and all of those terrific book covers for Andrew Clements. Luckily my hardcover copy of this book from 2000 only cost $2 the actual retail price is close to AUS$50. The family who gave this book to the fair also donated the third book - The Runaway Dolls.

I read The Doll People over just two days and I loved it!  This would be a terrific book to read in a family as a night time read aloud. It could be read to a range of young reading fans from age 6-10. the illustrations are fabulous, the cover on my copy has a different image underneath and the end papers are filled with advertisements for the original dollhouse and the new Funcraft version.  

I love that this story is simple.  It seems so many of our books are about complex dystopian worlds with life or death problems and nail biting adventures.  ...  I so enjoyed the simplicity of the story and how the characters navigated through life. I love that this book is about the secret lives of dolls.  I love that they hope and discover and take risks.  I love the mystery of Auntie Sarah and the adventures Annabelle and her friends and family have searching for her.  I love the relationships that develop throughout the book. Nerdy Book Club

Listen to an audio sample here. There are several more books in the series.

• The Doll People (2003)
• The Meanest Doll in the World (2005)
• The Runaway Dolls (2010)
• The Doll People Set Sail (2016)

This one is a picture book published in 2016

Stories about dolls and doll houses fascinate me. This book is a blend of The Borrowers and Miss Happiness and Miss Flower and it also has the vibe of Toy Story. Read this review from Books4yourkids.

Waiting for Wolf by Sandra Dieckmann

From the illustration on the first page we can see Fox and Wolf are really good friends but Wolf's very grey coat gives a hint of what is to come. 

"They talked and laughed for hours, and afterwards they swam in the warm water until they were tired. Days always seemed bright when Fox was with Wolf."

Then the text takes a small shift in tone. We read words such as promise me and remember. Then come these very sad words which Fox does not understand. 

"Tomorrow I will be starlight."

Fox is desperate to find his friend. She climbs a mountain to get closer to the stars then she pulls down a blanket of stars and whispers - Wolf are you there? Wolf really wanted little Fox to recall the good times, the perfect days they had shared. Over time, we see these happy memories working to restore Fox and if you look closely there are new friends just waiting by her side. 

Waiting for Wolf is a visually stunning, heart touching story of friendship, loss and acceptance. Kids' Book Review

With exquisite details of the flora and fauna, every spread is breath-takingly beautiful. Red Reading Hub

The impact of this story lasts a long time. Awfully Big Reviews

Please take a minute to read my previous post about death and grief. You might think you should wait to share this book with a child but if you read it before the child has to deal with deep grief perhaps the memory of this beautiful book will help with their healing.

My friend and I are making a list of very special illustrators and we are working on a project to share these with our blog friends and others. I think we might need to add Sandra Deickmann to our enormous list. My own picture book collection keeps expanding and I really don't need more books but I couldn't resist adding this one to my own shelves.  

I am not a fan of book endorsements especially when they are printed on the cover of a book but this one caught my eye. As an adult reader you will recognise this famous name.

Shaun Tan: "A heartfelt fable about the pain of grief and the joy of its revelation."

Companion books:

Fox - a Circle of life Story

The Bear and the Wildcat

The River

Bear and Rat

Here are her other titles by Sandra Dieckmann.

Sandra Dieckmann has doen the covers many books including these Middle Grade books:

Koala Ark by Stephen Michael King

"It came fast and without warning. The smouldering embers drifted into a smoky mist. There was great concern for the billabong friend."

The bushfire has arrived. Koala has a boat - an ark - and he sets off to collect all of his friends so they can be taken to a safe place. 

An ark! The original ark was filled with animals gathered by Noah - but in this book the disaster is not a flood it is a huge bushfire and the hero is not a man, it is a small, but heroic koala.

I love the spare text in this book and the hand drawn, fine line illustrations which on every page beautifully extend the text. Every face in this book conveys enormous emotion. Readers from other countries will be introduced to words such as billabong and Australian animals such as the Hopping Mouse, galah, bowerbird, tawny frogmouth, lorikeets, black cockatoos, and the bandicoot. 

The opening end paper of Koala Ark is presented as an aerial or bird's eye view of small islands near the coast of the Southern Ocean. Each area is inhabited by a different  group of animals. The landscape is lush and green. Then on the next page there is a huge orange and yellow image. You may immediately think, as I did, of fire.  On the title page we can see koala island and koalas enjoying their daily life but something is coming - a bushfire. On the final end paper the viewer zooms in even closer and it is clear the danger has passed and the koalas are once again able to enjoy their small patch of precious habitat.  The end paper images in Koala Ark reminded me of the images by Stephen Michael King for the story Up the Creek from Beetle Soup by Robin Morrow illustrated by Stephen Michael King (1997). 

Read the true life events that inspired Stephen Michael King to write this book. Sales of this book will be used to support: Koalas in Care  and Aussie Ark/ Koala Ark Project.

Companion reads:

You could also compare the bushfire images in Koala Ark with an earlier book by Stephen Michael King - Applesauce and the Christmas Miracle:

Applesauce and the Christmas Miracle

Take a look at my Pinterest collection of picture books about Bushfires here in Australia.

Meet the illustrator Alette Straathof

Alette Straathof was born and raised in a small town in The Netherlands. Alette received a BFA in Illustration and minored in Gamification at the Willem de Kooning Academy in 2016. Her illustrations are colourful, happy and are drawn in a naive style. Mixing different analogue materials such as watercolour, Indian ink and colour pencils, she creates playful paintings that make people smile and provokes good vibes. Alette works exclusively as a freelance illustrator and lives in Paris, France. The Bright Agency

You can see examples of Alette Straathof's work here.

Here is an image Australian children will recognise from One World Many Colours:

Image Source: Small Folk

When my friend and I visited a large public library here in Sydney this week I spied a book on display by this illustrator - Alette Straathof.  Her named intrigued me.  Visiting the school library where I volunteer each week I found another book with her illustrations - One Moment in Time.  

One Moment in Time is a lyrical celebration of diversity with a heartfelt message of unity. Featuring eleven different children, this book takes readers on a colourful, eye-opening journey around the globe in a single day, showing what children in different countries are each doing at the same point in time.

By chance I recently purchased another wonderful book about time - All in a day - a personal favourite. It would be fabulous to read these two books together to compare the way the authors explain the mysteries of time around the world. 

Here is another book illustrated by Alette Straathof:

All creatures whether furry, slithery, or feathered, show affection. 

Lush illustration and rhythmic, gently rhyming verse combine to demonstrate just how it’s done. 

I also found this title about Captain James Cook (9781911625667) at Waterstones but it doesn't seem to be widely available here in Australia which is odd because this book is one I am sure every school library would love to see. I did find one supplier. 

Alette Straathof also did the art for The Climbers which is a title from the Colour Fiction series but sadly this title is now out of print. 

Breathing Underwater by Sarah Allen

In September last year I compiled a blog post with the title "This book made me cry". I listed books I had read (and cried over) and also books that other people suggested on Facebook.  One of the books suggested by someone was Breathing Underwater.  This is moving story but it didn't make me cry. I found the plot a little repetitive and the ending was more or less predicable. 

This book was one of my mystery bargain purchases. Why was this book so cheap? One of our big bookstore chain stores has been culling their shelves. Originally this book was priced at AUS$23 and it was added to the store in August, 2022. I paid AUS$5 in July, 2023. 

Publisher blurb: Olivia is on the cross-country road trip of her dreams, complete with her favourite aunt and uncle, National Geographic magazines, and her big sister, Ruth. Once they reach San Diego, they have a plan to uncover a time capsule they buried when they moved away three years ago. Olivia can't wait to take pictures of the sights, adventures, and memories—but what she wants most is to make her sister happy again. Ruth has depression, and it seems to Olivia, who knows Ruth's signs, that things are getting worse. But as the road winds on and they get closer to their old home, she'll realise that love, not fixing, is all she can give. Breathing Underwater is the second novel from Sarah Allen, a big-hearted exploration of sisterhood, dreams, and what it means to be there for someone you love.

Olivia's sister Ruth is clearly very unwell so it seemed strange to me that she is sent on this road trip with her relatives and sister. No one seems to put much effort into talking to Ruth or making sure she is eating. Olivia is very young but at times her voice and naive outlook actually annoyed me. I did like the way she used her camera to record the tiny moments from their trip but I needed more background information about their time capsule. Why they buried it, what it contained and where? I did relate to Olivia's need to heal her sister and her anxious monitoring of her sister's mood but this book just didn't grab me.  Kirkus disagree - their reviewer enjoyed the voice of Olivia and the sisters heartfelt relationship. 

Here is an interview with Sarah Allen where she talks about Breathing Underwater.

This is another book where a young girl has to cope with the mental illness of their sibling. 

Everywhere Blue (Verse novel)