Posted on: 18/03/2013
Each month we will pick some recently published books that we have bought to share with you. We will try to stop at three, one being a book for younger readers within the 0-7 range, one for older readers (7 and up, up, up) and one non-fiction book, but occasionally an extra one (or five) may sneak past.
This is the second offering from Alexis Deacon and Viviane Schwarz and it tells a seemingly simple tale of power. When one happens upon something, say, a piece of cheese, then surely it is yours to claim. Well, it would seem that in Rat laws, this is true – unless there is someone bigger, hairier, stronger or quicker than you! This has a lovely predictability about it, which will have younger children wanting to read and read again, whilst older children and adults can muse upon the political minefield of ownership. The combination of illustrations and photo-montage make a great stimulus for art work as well, and we are sure this will inspire a few budding young story-tellers to create their own photo-montage and pencil creations.
One part informative, one part philosophical and a part which is pure fantasy, this book addresses and explores the important questions in life; the avoided questions and the ones we could debate for hours on end, the questions you never knew you wanted to ask and the questions where there is no definitive answer. French graphic designer Delphine Chedru aims to explore the story behind the missing object and so from ‘What happens to the sock which falls down the radiator?’ to ‘What happens to stories when the book is closed?’ this is a book to spark conversation, prediction and imagination. This book is based on a simple concept; ask a question on one page and answer it on another, and yet the answers are far from simple. Children will love the idea of many of the answers and possibilities presented here, and it will definitely fire up some further questions and answers at story time – but whether they would be answers you would choose to believe is another question altogether.
Timmy Failure, the eponymous hero of this offering by Stephan Pastis, is no ordinary eleven year old. He is the CEO of the Total Failure Inc detective agency. Alongside his extremely lazy business partner, who happens to be a rather large polar bear and the aptly-named Failuremobile, they have plans to be the most successful detective agency in the world. Timmy wants one thing, well almost one thing, and that is to be so successful and rich that his mother never has to worry about bills again. Oh, and to defeat Corrina Corrina, “The One Whose Name Shall Not Be Uttered”.
Fitting in a clever whodunit twist, plenty of well-placed visual humour and moments of poignancy, Stephan Pastis has you almost simultaneously laughing out loud and gasping for breath. We think this will be a big hit with fans of Liz Pichon, Andy Stanton and Jeff Kinney.
