These are recent Gecko Press publications – thanks to the publisher for sending them for review.

Lionel is just like Dad
Éric Veillé

This celebrates the relationship between a father and small child, lion style.

Little Lionel closely watches his father’s every move, copying his actions carefully.
When Dad combs his hair. so too does Lionel, Dad taps his teeth, Lionel does the same, Dad scratches an itch, ditto Lionel, Dad sings a song very loud, Lionel reciprocates. Then after a brief break, Dad throws things into the air, Lionel does likewise; 

however something that Lionel throws falls on Dad’s head. with a THUNK! causing the parent to cry out in alarm, as does Lionel. Now Dad is not so impressed with his little one’s copying behaviour and they turn away from one another. After a think on Dad’s part and on Lionel’s the two go and hide themselves. Not for long though for all ends happily with forgiveness from Dad and hugs all round.

Charming, reassuring and a fun portrayal of a parent’s unconditional love. Ville’s seemingly simple illustrations show so clearly the emotional changes of both characters.

Look
Friend
Gavin Bishop

Essentially Look , a wordless concertina fold out, opens one way to reveal a sequence of ten faces, nine human and one a dog. Opened the other way, you find a series of seemingly random objects likely to be familiar to an infant – a bird, a bunch of keys, a doll, a ball, a pair of spectacles, a toy bear, a snail, a ship, a dog, a rabbit and a truck – each one simply depicted centre stage in bold bright colours.
Unfolding to almost 2 metres this simple ‘tummy time’ book is sturdily built to withstand the frequent use it might well get.

Friend features a child narrator – the owner of a dog – who clearly loves the animal , calling her ‘My best friend’ on the final spread. Words are kept to a minimum with four being the most on a spread, and several have just a single descriptive word: happy, angry, rowdy, sad, shy, each of which is mirrored in an expressive picture of the pooch.
Little ones will enjoy the sequence relating what unfolds when the dog discovers an unwanted visitor in her food bowl, 

expresses how she feels about it by howling at an adult, receives a ticking off from the girl causing the creature to tuck herself under the table for a while.

An opportunity for small humans to learn new vocabulary as they follow the action and interactions. showing that real friends don’t always need to say much; their expressions speak volumes.