The Comet
Joe Todd-Stanton
Flying Eye Books

Nyla loves her home by the sea from where she can count a hundred stars and has even seen a comet; but then Dad loses his job and they have to move to a city. Nothing there feels like home to the girl: it’s a grey, frenetic place and her father has to work all the time, so they no longer have feasts together, no waves lull Nyla to sleep and just seven stars appear in the sky.

Then one night, she sees a comet falling towards earth and where it lands there sprouts a glowing, growing tree.

From this wonder, she creates something that forms a connection between the old and the new, something that is able to change their new abode into something magical, something that will make her begin to feel at home in the new place.

Told from Nyla’s viewpoint, the text is spare allowing for the exquisite, richly coloured illustrations, be they double spreads, single pages

or vignettes, to convey most of the story, and the dramatic final vertical spread brilliantly emphasises the transformation that has started and one infers, will continue.

A superb, heartfelt book to share with primary children, whether or not they are concerned about having to move themselves.

Flying Eye’s production is top class with it’s immediately engaging cover, framed pictorial endpapers relating to change and matt finish to the pages and help reflect Joe Todd-Stanton at his best as he shows how creativity and the power of the imagination can fill someone with hope and can help transform an unhappy situation into something positive.