Tag Rowboat Watkins

I Don’t Want To Be Quiet! / Mabel: A Mermaid Fable

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I Don’t Want To Be Quiet!
Laura Ellen Andersen
Bloomsbury Children’s Books

In the third of her ‘I Don’t Want … ‘ stories, Laura with the help of her young protagonist, explores what happens when instead of making the most noise you can in whatever situation you’re in,

you try something completely different, the possibilities of not making any sound at all and seeing what happens.

What the little girl who hates to be quiet discovers when she actually IS quiet is that there’s an enormous amount of fun to be had – inside your head,

out and about in the open air and in school too. And in fact it’s possible to hear all those hithertofore unheard gentle sounds

while still leaving times and places for making lots of noise.

A thought-provoking message delivered through an enormously enjoyable rhyming narrative and splendid brimming-over-with-energy illustrations; and it’s great for whole-hearted performance too.

Mabel: A Mermaid Fable
Rowboat Watkins
Chronicle Books

Mabel is different: her dad has a moustache – a very large one; her mum and sisters have small ones that curl at the ends, even her baby brother has a tiny one; but Mabel is entirely moustacheless. She’s so embarrassed she tries ‘hiding her nose behind jaunty shells and by wearing seaweed falsies, but this only made her feel like a clown.’

Having been called a ‘nudibranch (sea slug to you and me)’ by a taunting passing pufferfish, she decides there’s only one thing to do – hide.

While in hiding however, she encounters a seven-legged octopus (perhaps better termed a septopus) going by the name of Lucky. This fellow appendage-lacker soon becomes a firm friend and the two teach each other all manner of useful things.

An off-beat, warm-hearted tale of overcoming your worries and being yourself that’s full of wisdom and superbly illustrated. The undersea setting is splendidly wacky with a wealth of priceless minutiae to savour.

Most Marshmallows

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Most Marshmallows
Rowboat Watkins
Chronicle Books

Imagine an entire world populated by marshmallows; it’s what story-inventor extraordinaire, Rowboat Watkins does, one way or another.
As he informs us at the outset, ‘Most marshmallows don’t grow on trees … or come from storks — or even Mars.’

Instead most are mostly born of marshmallow parents and reside in various kinds of homes. They do the kind of things you and I would do like celebrating birthdays, watching television, going to school – well the young ones do, and presumably the marshmallow teachers.

Lessons are taught in being squishy – yes even these already soft confections have to perfect their squishiness, and in standing in rows – I’m not a big fan of that one, but some educational establishments think it’s super important;

and most definitely they should come to understand why they cannot breathe fire (that art is the preserve of dragons).

Now happily there are some divergent thinking marshmallows with secret knowledge and it’s something SO important I’ll share it with you humans so you can make sure your little ones know too: ‘Marshmallows – all of them – can do or be anything they dare to imagine.’

Now I’ve always said how crucial the development of the imagination is in education, or anywhere really and now THANK YOU Rowboat for your affirmation of this, with the help of those malleable little confections of yours.

Superbly creative, funny and positively inspiring, this is a truly tasty tale to share with young humans. Rowboat’s mixed media photo images are absolutely terrific; his scenes of what marshmallows do – be that most, the exceptions, or indeed all, are quite brilliant.

I was partial to marshmallows before reading this book, I’m even more so now.

Big Bunny

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Big Bunny
Rowboat Watkins
Chronicle Books

Rowboat Watkins does off the wall humour brilliantly as demonstrated in Rude Cakes and Pete With No Pants. Now he’s come up with another quirky, no make that totally bonkers, offering.

‘Once upon a time there was a BIG BUNNY’ begins the storyteller. ‘A ginormously SCARY bunny?’ responds the listener – presumably a child.

From then on the tale becomes an increasingly tall one with BB gorging himself on truckloads of carrots,

until the adult finally hands over the narrative to the child whereupon things spiral out of control with said rabbit devouring not only the carrots but the delivery trucks, a bridge

and then an entire city – the buildings were very tasty after all.

As for Big Bunny surely all that consumption would have damaged his inner workings wouldn’t it, rendering the creature totally unscary?

Thus far, we’ve not seen the two story makers and so have assumed their humanness.

Then comes the penultimate spread where all is revealed – a terrific splutter inducer if ever there was one.

There is no narrative as such, merely the dialogue between the two story makers whose identity I won’t reveal, but let’s just say it’s a bit of a cruncher and the final spread, absolutely delicious.

Seemingly Watkins’ inventiveness knows no bounds: this telling in combination with his crazy scenes of carrots, trucks and that omnivorous Big Bunny are wonderfully weird; look for all the lesser jokes scattered throughout too.

All ages will relish this yummy book for sure.

Hoot & Honk Just Can’t Sleep / Pete With No Pants

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Hoot & Honk Just Can’t Sleep
Leslie Helakoski
Sterling
A storm tosses two eggs from their nests precipitating a parental mix-up.
Hoot hatches in one nest: sometime later, Honk hatches in another. Straightaway there are problems with diet and the sleep-cycles of the hatchlings.

Their surroundings seem rather alien too and that is despite the accepting manner in which the parent birds deal with their offspring.
All ends happily however with both fledglings eventually being reunited with their own families, and adults of each are shown similarly enfolding their respective young in a tender embrace, just like a warm cosy duvet.

Helakoski’s delightfully whimsical tale told through a fusion of gentle staccato, rhyming text that has a pleasing pattern to it, and superbly expressive pastel illustrations is perfect for sharing with the very young at bedtime (or anytime). Ahhh!
In addition, the book offers a lovely gentle introduction to the fact that some birds are diurnal, others nocturnal.

Pete With No Pants
Rowboat Watkins
Chronicle Books
Seemingly pants and imaginative play don’t go together, or do they?
This book cracked me up from the opening line: ‘Shortly after breakfast, Pete decided he was a boulder.’ It’s the conclusion the young elephant, knock-knock joke lover, reaches having given it due consideration: after all he’s big, he’s grey; he’s not wearing pants. QED. But then as he basks in a kind of self-glory, his thoughts are interrupted by a knock-knock joke: result – a plummeting of his enthusiasm for boulderness.
So what about a squirrel? He definitely fits the essential critera for colour, an acorn predilection, non wearing of pants but …

And one far-from happy Mum.
Next day it’s a case of cloud contemplation, squirrel mockery and further knock-knock jokery failures with owls for Pete.

Then Mum, who appears to have undergone something of a change of heart, shows up to play. Whoppee!

Deliciously quirky, crazily anarchic and you need to read the muted pictures very carefully to keep abreast of the happenings. Share with one child, or for individuals to enjoy in ones or twos.

I’ve signed the charter  

Bad Behaviour and Good

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Rude Cakes
Rowboat Watkins
Chronicle Books
If you’re looking for a quirky take on manners bad and good, then this entirely crazy confection is certainly one you should bite into. The tale shows what happens when the two-tiered character of the title – a far from sweet, indeed thoroughly ill-mannered, badly behaved object – that bullies and totally disrespects his four-tiered parents is whisked away

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to a place inhabited by Giant Cyclopses and one of their number starts sporting “Rudey” as my audience named him as a ‘jaunty little hat.’

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From upon a Cyclops’ head, the cake discovers a completely new way of being: one where sharing, politeness and respect for one’s elders is the thing and is then returned, a reformed character, to his bedroom safe and altogether sweeter.
Watkins has used watercolours in pastel shades, and delicate lines, to portray his wonderfully silly cakey characters and somehow manages to create sufficient solidity and gravitas in the Cyclopses to give them a powerful presence, a presence that began in the form of a toy stolen from a chocolate cupcake and a poster above the chief protagonist’s bed. (Observant readers will have noticed these.)

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And the moral of the tale? Well, that’s pretty clear but the deliciously playful manner of telling means that there’s no preaching. Rather the whole thing is a cleverly concocted metaphor showing how greater forces for good can prevail.
Would that it were so in our world of conflicts and catastrophes.
Powerful stuff: I wonder what Watkins will cook up next.

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A Gold Star for George
Alice Hemming and Kimberley Scott
Maverick Arts Publishing
I’m not a fan of the rewards and punishments system that is so prevalent in schools but I have to applaud, and wholeheartedly endorse George Giraffe’s endeavours in this story, set in The Heavenly Hippos Wildlife Park.
When the notice announcing Heavenly Hippos Gold Star Awards is posted George ponders the possibilities of getting a shiny gold star for that special place on his fence.

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He’s always on hand to assist his pals in their endeavours but could he be a winner? All the other animals have talents to display but George cannot win that category; what about the most stylish animal perhaps? No – that’s goes to the only unadorned of the animals.
It’s a somewhat downhearted George that celebrates his pals’ prizes but goes to sleep without one of his own. What then is that sound he hears on waking … and that bright twinkle? …

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Kindness and consideration win through in this story, which I envisage being shared as a prelude to circle time sessions in early years settings especially. Amusingly expressive illustrations grace every spread and celebrate an endearing character.

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