Tag Gideon Sterer

The Midnight Fair

jillrbennett Leave a comment

The Midnight Fair
Gideon Sterer and Mariachiara Di Giorgio
Walker Books

Oh WOW! This is such a superb wordess book ( wordless save for the occasional fairground signs) – definitely one of the very best I’ve seen and way too good to restrict to a particular audience.

As the book opens, forest creatures – bears, squirrels, deer, a stoat, racoons, a badger, a fox, rabbits, mice, a wolf – watch from beyond the fence as the fair unloads. From the edge of the woodlands they see the fairground filling up with humans large and small who spend the entire day enjoying the thrills, leaving only as night descends. The keeper switches off the lights.

From the shadows the animals emerge – it’s their turn now for some of that fun. In they come eyes aglow, through a gap in the fence, two racoons reactivate the power and the place becomes theirs. We also feel it’s ours, so immersive are the illustrations. As well as revelling in the rides and other attractions the animals take on the roles of the stall holders using various natural objects – acorns, pinecones, shells, leaves, fungi and wild flowers – as payment and we can almost inhale the scents of popcorn and candy floss.

At daybreak, the keeper wakes; it’s time for the animals to leave. Tired but very happy and a tad messy, they clear up the entire place and hurry away in the nick of time,

leaving only some of their currency on the ticket counter. But, their business is not quite done yet: as the others bed down, wolf carrying the goldfish won at the hoop-la stall, heads down to the lake and releases it into the water.

With clever use of both dark and light, and the natural world and the human one, Mariachiara Di Giorgio’s mixed media spreads, both detailed frames and expansive double page scenes, are a satisfying mix of the whimsical and the wondrous. This is one of those books that the more you read it, the more emerges.

When We Go Camping/ Skyfishing

jillrbennett Leave a comment


Who is the narrator of this lively celebration of family camping? Could it be one of the children? A parent? Or perhaps, the eponymous dog that gets into each and every scene? I doubt it’s one of the grandparents; all they seem to do is sit around or participate in some form of spectator sport, with the odd pause for a spot of insect swatting on occasion.
Meanwhile, other family members make friends, play, cook, fish, swim, shiver thereafter: beg your pardon Gramps: there you are boiling up the billy can for a warm-up drink for the chilly swimmers.

Naturally taking a pee involves a bit of inconvenience and perhaps it might be advisable to take a clothes peg along.

Perhaps the highlight of the day is a spot of ‘Hummetty strummetty squeak-io’ singing around the fire before finally repairing to the tent for some dream-filled slumbers.
Sally Sutton’s rhythmic, rhyming narrative is irresistible, especially so those playful refrains that accompany every scenario so beautifully portrayed in Cat Chapman’s watercolours: there’s a ‘Smacketty tappetty bopp-io‘; a ‘Zippetty zappetty flopp-io’ and a ‘Snuffletty wuffletty roar-io’ to name a few: I’ll leave readers to guess what actions they orchestrate.
My memories of camping are of endeavouring to bash pegs into sloping, rock-hard ground, lumpy porridge and noisy sleep-intruding voices in the night. This book in contrast makes the whole experience – well maybe not the loo visits or the odd trip-up – a pleasure, full of simple, fun-filled delight.

Skyfishing
Gideon Sterer and Poly Bernatene
Abrams Books for Young Readers
The young girl narrator’s grandfather loves to fish; so when he moves from his rural idyll to live in the big city with his family, he greatly misses his passion. The child is determined to find a way to engage him, but through autumn and winter, nothing catches his interest.
Come spring, the girl has an inspiration: she initiates a game of ‘let’s pretend’ fishing over the balcony edge and …

The possibilities escalate until they cast their lines deep into the rumbling tumbling ‘ocean’ below: an ocean full of wonderful adventures to last for months and months …

As the narrative unfolds, Bernatene’s vibrant, whimsical paintings show the chaotic city transformed into an ocean teeming with amazing sea creatures.
A warm-hearted story of the special relationship between the young and old, and the power of the imagination.

I’ve signed the charter