It took me a while to get John Burningham. For a while I thought his drawing was a bit rubbish. Now I agree with Raymond Briggs, creator of The Snowman, who describes him as ‘one of the greatest book illustrators of the century. John’s work is completely original, unlike anything before or since’ . Delightfully…
Perhaps this is a little more like the kind of book you might expect on a site with this name. Certainly here is an angel, an angel who is suitably mysterious. And an angel who brings about a kind of miracle, for Lewis has a dodgy leg and wants to be like the other kids….
Beegu’s a long way from home. Her flying saucer crash lands on Earth. She’s worried she won’t ever see her mother again and Earth is very strange. But she finds some children, and they are nice and then… she hears her mother. A book with few words and pictures that subtly convey great emotional heft….
So sensitively handled, Judith Kerr’s story of Mog’s passing: “she was dead tired… even her tail was dead tired” helps children find peace, not just with the death of a pet, but more largely with death itself. Enough of Mog stays behind to sort out the new kitten and then to leave for good, knowing…
What better book to start than Clown. The only word in the whole book is the title, but Quentin Blake masterfully creates a moving story of loss and separation transformed into reunion and new friends, all through Clown’s inventive and determined loyalty. Juggling potatoes to charm a crying baby, moments after being hurled in through…
