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Lisette’s Green Sock by Catharina Valckx. Translated by Antony Shugaar.
Lisette’s Green Sock by Catharina Valckx. Translated by Antony Shugaar. Pub. Gecko Press, 2020.
If I wanted a go to a picture book to cheer me up, this is the one I would read. It’s about individuality and difference and how everybody can use things in a different way. In this instance it is a green sock and a very comfortable looking sock it is too.
“On a bright sunny day, Lisette goes out for a walk“. She passes her mum reading a book. Lisette and her mum both wear head scarfs, which I like, and they both are birds, probably chickens. Lisette finds a single green sock, likes it and puts on her left foot although it ends up on her right foot by the time she gets back home again.
Bert the rat likes the sock too but he prefers it as a hat. Tim and Tom cat find the other sock and Lisette and Bert give chase but they throw it on the river where fish finds it. What do you think fish will do with it? read it and find out.
The illustrations are superb, the colours are pastel, the characterisation inspired, and it can be used as a read aloud for juniors. Quite simply the best picture book this year. Don’t miss it.
Only Freaks Turn Things Into Bones by Steff Green, illus. Bree Roldan
Only Freaks Turn Things Into Bones by Steff Green, illus. Bree Roldan. Pub. Obscura, 2019.
Little Grim is a freak and he knows it. His dad is the Grim reaper and he wants little Grim to go to school but little Grim is going to face rejection and hostility because of how he looks, and what happens when he touches things.
He runs to the graveyard where he feels at home and he meets Suzie who introduces him to others who have been rejected and bullied. Together they work on a mural about their lives.
Beautifully illustrated with a great last line “When “freaks” become friends we have way more fun”.
A sophisticated picture book with the theme of difference for everybody especially those who are bored with reading.
Along Came a Different by Tom McLaughlin.
Along Came a Different by Tom McLaughlin. Pub.Bloomsbury, 2018.
This outstanding picture book discusses racism, prejudice and difference in the most simplest of ways – using colours and shapes.
The Reds are first on the scene with their red hats, songs and apples. Then came the yellows with their bananas and they didn’t like the Reds because their hats were too pointy and music too loud. They divided the territory up, then the Blues turned up with their bow ties and twangy guitars.
Nobody liked each other and things got sillier and sillier. So they drew up rules. Being friends was banned.
Something has got to give and then something really different shows up. See what they do.
Superb illustrations using colours of course with large written text some of it in dark black for emphasis.
Excellent read aloud and superb message. Why can’t we all be friends?
Perfectly Norman by Tom Percival.
Perfectly Norman by Tom Percival. Pub. Bloomsbury, 2017.
This superb picture book has a touch of genius about it as it helps children who are different understand that they should not be embarrassed or ashamed about their difference and tells them they are not alone.
Norman is,in his parents eyes, perfectly normal, but you the reader know this is not true by the illustrations. Norman and his kite are in colour and everything else is in black and white.
Then the imaginative Norman grows a pair of multi coloured wings and celebrates with a flight with the birds. Norman worries how his parents will react, so wears a warm coat which he never takes off. This makes his life miserable until he realises that the wings are not the problem but wearing the coat is.
He sheds the coat and other children with the same difference shed theirs and we have a wonderful celebration of colour as winged happy children take to the air.
Perfectly Norman or is that normal. Great to read aloud to juniors.
The illustrations are superb. The contrast of black and white with colour enhances the theme of difference and the isolation that people with difference sometimes feel. I repeat, a touch of genius.
Yousuf’s Everyday Adventures: Beautifully Different by Dana Salim, illus. Pavel Goldaev.
Yousuf’s Everyday Adventures: Beautifully Different by Dana Salim, illus. Pavel Goldaev. Pub. dana@ds-publishing.com
Taylor Swift once said “if you have the good fortune to be different don’t ever change“. This is very much the theme of this positive picture book about difference.
The book opens with this line- “Daddy, some of the kids in my class are different than me. Why is that? Why can’t we all be the same?”
Then we go on a fantasy adventure that involves travel to a land where the flowers are attacked by weeds and unite together to defeat them. The message is difference is beautiful.
The illustrations are bright, large and colourful. They start with a father and son both with big expressive eyes who go on an Imagination Time Travel game and it ends with a positive lesson.
A picture book with International appeal for primary school children and probably best read aloud to a class or individuals.
This is where the World Ends by Amy Zhang.
This is where the World Ends by Amy Zhang. Pub. Greenwillow Books imprint HarperCollins, 2016.
If you like tragic young adult stories this is about as tragic as it gets, but so wonderfully told.
Janie and her secret boyfriend Micah share the same birthday. They call it Metaphor Day after a pile of rocks that stands near a deep quarry full of water near both their houses. They are different yet together. Micah likes Rachmaninoff Prelude in G Minor, Janie is Let it Be by the Beatles. Janie carries rocks from the Metaphor around in her pocket.
They tell no-one of their relationship because Janie wants it that way, meanwhile she has a relationship with a jock called Ander from school. He is repulsive and his actions ultimately lead to Janie’s collapse.
Lewis Carroll once said “all the best people are crazy” and I think this sums up the characters in the book well, but then aren’t we all. This is a school story about growing up.
The novel is structured in two parts, Once Upon a Time and Happily Ever After and within each part their are three narratives – a Before narrative by Janie, an After narrative by Micah and a Journal kept by Janie which provides a fairytale dimension to Janie’s life and to the story.
It took me a while to get into this novel but once in there I dwelt for long periods digesting every word, action, emotion and fantasy. You will too. It is not unlike All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. It is very deep and not for everybody but those that like it will remember it forever.
Raymie Nightingale by Kate Di Camillo.
Raymie Nightingale by Kate Di Camillo. Pub. Walker Books, 2016.
This is a novel for primary/intermediate students that will draw you in once you have read one page. It begins on a day when the sun is in a cloudless sky “it seemed like someone had put it up there and then walked away and left it”.
The style of writing with short sharp sentences makes for easy and compulsive reading. Kate Di Camillo draws the imagination out of the reader with her descriptions – “she looked like a mermaid in a bad mood” and when describing one of the characters grandmother it was “like looking at Louisiana in a fun house mirror”
The story is about three girls who are all broken hearted. Raymie’s father has run away with a dental hygienist and she wants him back. Louisiana’s parents have been killed and she lives with her grandma who has put her cat in a home, and Beverley has a father who is a cop and has left home.
They meet at Baton twerling lessons and each has a motive for being there and all three want to enter the Little Miss Central Florida Tire 1975 competition which involves doing good deeds. The three become friends and as the plot progresses their priorities change.
Set in Florida in 1975 it tells of an innocent age long since passed. It is refreshing reading from the same writer that gave us Because of Winn-Dixie and the Tale of Despereaux,
You have to read this beauty, a smile will rarely leave your face.