Tag memory game

Who Was That?

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Who Was That?
Olivier Tallec
Chronicle Books

That Olivier Tallec is a genius in seemingly effortless characterisation was evident in Who Done It? and Who What Where? Now he follows with another equally wonderful memory and observation testing offering, this time making clever use of occasional die-cut holes in the long, narrow pages.

If you ever thought looking and seeing were one and the same, think again.

We begin with a spread that introduces a mix of animal and human characters with a child inviting readers to ‘Blow out the candle and turn the page.’
Having plunged them into darkness we’re then asked ‘Who is wearing a yellow scarf?’

The answer to the question ‘What is Olive afraid of?’ on the next spread, is revealed by turning the die-cut page, but then another tester greets us concerning the colour of Oliver’s undies.

The questions are totally unpredictable as for example when we’re instructed to cover a character standing on a diving board and then asked how many teeth he has.

Sometimes there’s a tricky double poser as when the first question asks ‘Which of these friends likes sleeping on both ends of the bed? You think ‘no problem’ but when you turn over you’re faced with ‘But who wasn’t wearing pyjamas?’ Hmm.
The illustrative details are enormous fun in themselves, take this line up here: every one of the characters must surely have a myriad of stories to tell …

The final scenario is a knockout – literally –it’s as well the archers are using sucker-tipped arrows …

as we discover when the die-cut page is flipped to reveal …

Enormous fun and if you can’t solve the posers, there’s a final visual answer page.

I envisage children inventing their own tricky questions once they’ve solved the posers herein; the potential is huge. Some slightly older readers might even try making their own books along similar lines.

I’ve signed the charter  

SWAP! or Shop?

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SWAP!
Steve Light
Walker Books
An encounter between a tiny pirate and an impoverished sea captain with a dilapidated ship is the starting point for this wonderful tale. The small swashbuckler is quick thinking and doesn’t miss an opportunity, so when he rescues a button that pops off the captain’s coat, it leads to an amazing chain of bartering as one button becomes two teacups,

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which become three coils of rope, two of which become half a dozen oars. Then, through a whole lot more mathematical manoeuvring, swapping and trading, our young hero manages to obtain flags,

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anchors, sails …

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a ship’s wheel and a figurehead. All this and not a single coin has changed hands; but what’s even more important, the whole ship is now absolutely ship-shape and the diminutive pirate has made himself a new friend for life.
Genius storytelling. Steve Light’s signature style intricately detailed black and white pictures with just a splash of colour here and there, and a brief text of judiciously chosen words combine to make a fun-filled book for sharing and for early reading, with ‘SWAP! ‘providing the opportunity for audience participation at every transaction and helping to build tension towards the entirely satisfying finale …

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It’s buying not bartering in:

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I Went to the Supermarket
Paul Howard
Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Most parents and teachers of young children will be familiar with the memory game on which this book is based. However, the two small players of the game herein have boundless imaginations and so their ‘purchases’ range from …

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and a cute baby elephant, through to …

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And then of course, there are more mundane items such as jelly – oh – make that a mountain of the stuff, not your average small packet. Remember that one though: it proves to be somebody’s undoing so to speak. Whoops! Nearly forgot those bubbles – they’re quite important too.
A totally ridiculous flight of fancy that’s sure to be lapped up by young audiences who will delight in the craziness of the whole thing so wonderfully visualised by Paul Howard, particularly I suspect, those super hero pants; they end up in the most unlikely of places. And, then there’s the fun of trying to recall all those purchases – no peeping allowed. For sheer ebullience, this one takes some beating.

Use your local bookshop        localbookshops_NameImage-2