Have You Met Henry Finch… And Se7en + 1 Finger Print Activities…

With World book Day last weekend, we are celebrating with a week of books on our blog.

I am Henry Finch, published by PanMacmillan South Africa is a thoughtful new release that will inspire artists of all ages and stages… a book full of fingerprint finches is enough to get any artists “arting.” You can meet the author, Alexis Deacon over here, and the illustrator, Viviane Schwartz over here.

We reviewed this book earlier this year… This is a thoughtful book for the discerning picture book lover. Henry Finch is a fingerprint Finch, that looks exactly like bazillions of other finches. Only Henry Finch is a bit of a thinker and he decides to do something a little bit differently to everybody else… Every morning the finches do the same thing at the same time, and they all live in terror of the daily visit from the green beast (who may overwhelm extremely sensitive viewers). Well Henry Finch decides to face his fear of the green beast, and I love how when you are reading the story and Henry starts thinking his own thoughts, the pages change from a white background to a black background… and some very clever illustrating goes on here, quite understandable to all ages without any translation… Henry Finch has a bit of a brainstorm…

Ultimately, after some powerful thoughts Henry has quite an adventure, and manages to convince the beast to become a vegetarian. He returns to his finch family and shares his story, and suddenly all the finches have their own plans. It is a very empowering story and one that will encourages their readers to stay true to themselves and not follow the crowd. Clever, clever use of illustration… this is a great read, you can’t help being very proud of the inner strength of little Henry Finch.

PanMacmillan invited us to join the Picture Book Party and play along with them and discover some fun while reading I am Henry Finch. And we came up with se7en+1 fingerprint activities…

Se7en+1 FingerPrint Finch Activities…

1. You can’t have a party without a cake and a treasure hunt:


Make a few fingerprint stickers… and hide them in plain sight around the house.





2. Fingerprint Finches by the million:



3. A Tree of Finches:



4. Giant Finches: Google fingerprint images, and print them out on A4 paper, they are great for colouring.



5. Fingerprint Finches quickly led to local birds:



6. And our Local Birds quickly led to Mini-Bird Books:

7. And the Local Birds led to Wildlife:



8. And Animal fact Cards:

That’s it, from the very thoughtful Henry Finch… who deserves a hug for his bravery…

Thank you so much to PanMacmillan South Africa for the copy of I am Henry Finch for review purposes and the invitation to join the Picture Book Party. This is not a sponsored post, we were not paid to create it and the opinions expressed are, as usual, our own.