Tag flights of fancy

1,2,3, Do the Shark / The Horse that Jumped

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These are two picture books ideal for bedtime sharing kindly sent for review from Farshore

1,2,3, Do the Shark
Michelle Robinson and Rosalind Beardshaw

Get ready for a bit of funky action deep beneath the ocean where Bess’s fishy pals are somewhat disturbed by a storm. Not so Bess though; clad in her shark attire, she urges them all to join her in a bit of boogieing. “Copy me and do the shark!” she says performing the appropriate moves

until all the sea creatures are joining in with the stretching, fin waving, tail swishing and generally strutting their stuff.

That achieved, it’s time to take a dive down deeper, right to the ocean bed where something rather scary is peering out from the mouth of a cave.

Crab gives a Shark alert. Time to take evasive action suggests Bess and so they do.

But perhaps that shark isn’t as scary as they first thought? Has he another reason for watching them so closely perhaps …

With a lovely switch from imagined to real, the story has a perfect ending 1,2,3 zzzzz.
An ideal pre bedtime book for those around little Bess’s age told in Michelle’s splendidly readable rhyming text and through Rosalind’s delightful mainly subaquatic, scenes.

The Horse that Jumped
Thomas Docherty

This is a thoroughly enchanting tale of a little girl and a horse that jumps and keeps on jumping. It jumps over a flower, over a rock, over a fence, out of its field, across a steam, over a bench and through an open window right into the girl’s bedroom.

On jumps said girl and off they go right out into the world, galloping and then jumping through a series of richly illustrated scenes of mountains, sea

and skyscapes

until the girl falls fast asleep, is transported back to her own bed and thence into dreamland.

With mounting excitement, so evident in the eyes of girl and horse, as the journey moves from location to location, Thomas Docherty, tells this exhilarating story of freedom and friendship using relatively few well chosen words, leaving his gorgeous illustrations of a fabulous flight of fancy to do most of the talking. It’s impossible not to feel that joyful freeing sense of movement be you listener or reader aloud: what a splendid celebration of the power of the imagination.

Flights of Fancy

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Flights of Fancy
Quentin Blake, Anne Fine, Michael Morpurgo, Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Rosen, Julia Donaldson, Anthony Browne, Malorie Blackman, Chris Riddell, Lauren Child
Walker Books

Now in paperback, here’s a truly special gem of an anthology subtitled ‘Let your imagination soar with top tips from ten Children’s Laureates’. It brings together the ten awesome authors and illustrators who have held the title (given in celebration of their outstanding achievements) and first awarded to Quentin Blake in 1999.

To open, Michael Morpurgo explains how the original idea of the role (each person holds it for two years), was first thought up by himself and Ted Hughes, the then Poet Laureate.

You might be especially interested in poetry, rhyme and wordplay, if so head first to the sections from Michael Rosen and Julia Donaldson. Michael in Poetry Belongs to Everyone talks about playing around with a word to create a poem. Julia Donaldson’s Plays to Read and to Write discusses one of her own plays that she based on the Aesop’s fable, The Hare and the Tortoise, offering a fun, lively 6-parter

If you’d rather be playful in the visual sense then Anthony Browne’s The Shape Game could be your starting point: having talked about how to play it, he showcases some examples from 3 other famous illustrators to whom he gave the same shape to play as the one of his own shown in the book. The potential with this one is endless. Probably that is the case with most of the chapters however.

In The Only Way to Travel, Quentin Blake writes with reference to  Dahl’s stories, about how when illustrating someone else’s texts it’s important to ‘put yourself inside their story’ and capture the atmosphere before diving in and drawing those fabulous illustrations of his.

More about how other fabulous illustrators approach their drawing and what provides their inspiration comes from Chris Riddell –

make sure you check out his brilliant cartoons of all ten Children’s Laureates in the final section – and Lauren Child.

How fantastic and moving is Michael Morpurgo’s Find Your Own Voice that tells children how to do so in ‘I Believe in Unicorns’.
I thoroughly enjoyed too, Malorie Blackman’s Taking a Word for a Walk using SEA as her example,

before she moves on to discussing from whose viewpoint a story is being told when one writes.

If you want to inspire children to let their imaginations soar, then you really, really must have a copy of this cracker of a book in your home or classroom; not only will it do just that, but it will also ignite or add fuel to a passion for reading, writing and illustrating. (BookTrust, which manages the Children’s Laureate gets 50p from every sale.)

Prudence and Her Amazing Adventure

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Prudence and Her Amazing Adventure
Charlotte Gastaut
Thames & Hudson

Amazing is something of an understatement when it comes to young Prudence’s flights of fancy that take place as she blocks out her parents’ increasingly urgent calls to tidy up and get ready to go out.

Out she certainly does go, far, far away to wonderful woodlands,

incredible tropical jungles, deep down into the ocean and way, way up among the stars.

All kinds of creatures, strange and stranger still, as well as some more expected ones, inhabit the landscapes, seascapes and skyscapes she visits on her imaginary journey; until eventually those parental voices once more break into her fantasy worlds and it’s time to answer their call.

As well as her awesome double spread illustrations, French artist extraordinaire, Charlotte Gastaut has included cut-outs and translucent pages to flip back and forth, as readers join the little girl on her incredible adventures.

There is SO much to see in every scene, some of which almost leaps from the page thanks to Charlotte’s bright pink colour pops, whereas other details are less easily discernible hidden between the swirling textures of the rocks, stones and foliage.

Who would want to tidy up a room when it can furnish such breath taking experiences as Prudence’s?

A stunning book to immerse oneself in, and to visit over and over, losing track of time just like Prudence.

Museums and Machines

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A Funny Thing Happened at the Museum
Davide Cali and Benjamin Chaud
Chronicle Books
The terrific twosome of The Truth About My Unbelievable Summer and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School fame have combined forces in another zany Henry adventure; and as always he is accompanied by his dachshund pal. This time the protagonist is put on the spot by a question about the class trip to a museum. The lad seems to have been rather tardy in his arrival at said museum and consequently undertaken his own explorations therein. Whether he, or the exhibits were more entertained, one can only imagine. He supposedly got up to all manner of unlikely activities: balloon sculpting for the Neanderthals,

and there was certainly plenty to feast his eyes on. A T.Rex for instance, sculptures, a great whale and a woolly mammoth, lots of paintings –

some abstract art requiring the odd finishing touch here and there, and the museum’s storage facilities needing a bit of reorganisation.
See how many art references you can spot …that dachshund portrait does appear to bear more than a passing resemblance to the famous Mona Lisa. And yes, Henry does eventually catch up with the rest of his class, albeit by some rather risky means.
Pretty off-the-wall stuff; but those who have enjoyed the previous flights of fancy delivered by Cali and Chaud will certainly find plenty to amuse herein.

Winnie and Wilbur Gadgets Galore
Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul
Oxford University Press
This bumper book of three, re-named, previously published titles featuring the much-loved duo, Winnie and Wilbur in Space, Winnie’s New Computer and Winnie and the Big Bad Robot will surely appeal to those of a mechanical bent.
The first sees the pair hurtling skywards in a rocket and discovering the ‘Purrfect” picnic spot, then having their picnic invaded by a horde of hungry space rabbits. The odd swish of her magic wand produces the ideal fare for the bouncing bunnies; but the voracious consumption of their favourite metallic meal leads to the visitors being without any means of getting back home. Can Winnie’s wand save the day once again?
You’d think after all that excitement in previous adventures involving machines, now renamed for this compilation, Winnie would have learned to stay clear; but her first foray, that involving a misunderstanding on Wilbur’s part, the scanning of her spell books into her computer and a mal-functioning mouse – Wilbur’s doing; and the second, an extremely unfortunate experience with the robot constructed by Winnie in her weekly creativity class at the local library, didn’t deter her at all. Hence her ‘big adventure’ in space.
The magic still holds good, no matter how the stories are packaged.

I’ve signed the charter 

The Star Tree

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The Star Tree
Catherine Hyde
Frances Lincoln Children’s Books
A tender lyrical story of a flame-haired girl, Mia who makes a Midsummer’s night moonlit wish.

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It’s a wish that launches her on an amazing magical journey by air, sea and land, a journey made possible by a huge owl,

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a Little Red Hare …

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(look at the toys on Mia’s window sill), Big White Bear and his air balloon and, Giant Stag. It’s he that takes her up to the top of the high hill upon which stands the Star Tree shimmering and sparkling in the night. From it Mia takes one small star …

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and clutching it to herself, boards the waiting Great White Goose and flies homewards ‘along the river’s silver pathway. / Up and over the drowsy land, over the hills, / over the church with the blunted vane / that barely stirs in the still air.’ to her bedroom wherein something else truly magical awaits her …
Breath-takingly beautiful illustrations and equally magical words meld into a spellbinding reading experience. Every one of Catherine Hyde’s atmospheric paintings has a mesmeric quality, which transports readers – particularly this one – to those other worlds of the imagination where anything and everything is possible. On subsequent readings try letting that happen; focus on one scene, pause and release your mind for a while before continuing Mia’s journey with her.
A perfect bedtime share; but equally a story to read at anytime; and a wonderful demonstration of how visual and verbal artistry can work together as a truly harmonious whole.

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Nothing!

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Nothing!
Yasmeen Ismail
Bloomsbury Children’s Books
You’ve just got to meet Lila: she’s unstoppable with her boundless imagination and joie de vivre. And she’s just off with Mummy – or is supposed to be – to visit her Grandpa. The snag is – for her mum anyhow – that Lila has already let her vivid imagination take over and rather than getting on her outdoor clothes she’s off on one of her flights of fancy. Here she goes … doing, as she tells Mummy, “Nothing …”

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Yes they do manage to catch a train eventually, Lila with biscuit in hand and doing “Nothing …” to said biscuit and it’s this tasty treat that sets her imagination off into over-drive again RARRR-RRR! 

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The next step of the journey is, for Lila at least by scooter – did I say scooter? Actually for Lila it’s something else altogether: now she’s “the queen of super speed” who will “CRASH down mountains and tear up trees … “

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Eventually, they do arrive at their destination and in response to Grandpa’s “What have you been doing since I last saw you?” comes the inevitable – I’ll leave that to you to work out … … and move on with Lila as she takes to the air with the birds, followed by …

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Grandpa – Yippee!
Sheer delight from cover to cover: Yasmeen Ismail does it YET again with this one. I have to say though, that I was more than a little bit predisposed to adore it from the cover message ‘Run away with your imagination’ before even looking on the inside. Nevertheless this bobby dazzler more than lived up to expectations: Lila is out of this world, brilliant.

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