Tag Beth Suzanna

Ten-Word Tiny Tales of Love

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Ten-Word Tiny Tales of Love
Joseph Coelho (and 21 illustrator friends)
 Walker Books

This is former children’s laureate Joseph Coelho’s second Ten-Word Tiny Tales offering, this one having a unifying theme – love – and in an introduction, Joseph tells readers how the tiny tales came about.
Each of the tales is moving in its own special way; you will find great sadness, tender parental and sibling love, spookiness, the fantastical, the humorous and more.

Coming from all over the world, each one of the talented artists has created an equally special, very different scene, thus making every turn of the page a verbal and a visual delight.

We see enigmatic and literal interpretations as well as ambiguity: there is love for such diverse things as a bike, baby birds and a brother,

but in every case the intention is to create a world – a space of awareness – that will spark the reader’s imagination.

To facilitate this, Joseph offers some story writing prompts in the final two spreads.
Altogether a treasure trove that holds within, a wealth of possibilities for creativity both in the classroom and at home.

What You Need To Be Warm

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What You Need To Be Warm
Neil Gaiman
Bloomsbury Children’s Books

In 2019 Neil Gaiman author and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, asked his Twitter followers, ‘What reminds you of warmth?’ He received thousands of replies and from these he composed a freeform poem in aid of UNHCR’s 2019 winter appeal.

The images Gaiman gathered signifying warmth range from clutching a baked potato

to ‘The tink tink tink of / iron radiators /waking in an old house. / To surface from dreams in a bed , / burrowed beneath blankets / and comforters,’ …to ‘the wood burning / in the stove’ .
There is hope though for the poem concludes thus, ‘You have the right / to be here.’
Thirteen artists: Yuliya Gwilym, Nadine Kaadan, Pam Smy, Daniel Egnéus, Beth Suzanna, Marie-Alice Harel, Petr Horáček, Chris Riddell, Bagram Ibatoulline, Benji Davies, Majid Adin,

and Richard Jones each provided an original illustration. Twelve illustrators offered comments printed at the back of the book. Oliver Jeffers created the stirring cover art and this important, compelling book is the result.

A wonderfully warm glow emanates from his cover images: would that such warmth be offered to all refugees and other people displaced of necessity around the world. With both the on-going conflict in Ukraine and now that in Israel and Gaza, its humanitarian message is even more urgent today than it was four years back when the tweet went out.

A donation of £1.55 from each sale of the book in the UK and at least 40p from sales in other territories will be donated to the UN Refugee Agency.