
Se7en Stunning Picture Books

Where to Hide a Star
There is everything to love about an Oliver Jeffers’ latest book… everything. The Boy has two friends: a penguin and a star and they play a lot of hide and seek. The star is always easy to find, but the penguin is not so easy find… one day the penguin needs help and the boy puts his star in their boat, while he helps his penguin. And the star drifts away. Together the boy and the penguin search high and low, and all over the show. Meanwhile, they have a martian friend who sets out to help… and they discover that there is a girl in the North Pole, who has also become friends with the star. Two friends and only one star… the martian resolves it and everyone lives happily ever after. Simple illustrations with so much going on in them… on every spread ther is a busy busy penguin. It is all delightful and a worthy addition to any picture book collection. This is heartwarming to the max, as one would expect.

A Mouse Called Julian
If you would like to climb into the cosy world of a little mouse, then this is the book for you. Julian is a little shy mouse and he dodges all the other animals, above and below ground. We get a lovely view of his world, with the sweetest illustrations… And one day a sneaky fox tries to catch the mouse, but he fails galacticaly when he gets stuck in the mouse’s front door, but he can’t quite reach the mouse. Eventually the mouse has to help, but should he, his life is in jeopardy!!! Julian a kind heart and a little later, when he finds himself in a little pickle… the fox tries to do the right thing… kindness repaid leads to life long friendship. It is a charming tale, with wonderfully busy illustrations to explore.

Fairy Shopping
Sally Gardner books are for pouring over, her illustrations are pure magic. The pages in her books are packed with teeny, tiny details, you can literally explore theses stories, of very few words, for hours and hours. Fairy hats and fairy shoes, fairy sweets and fairy lights… and in Silverbell Street, there is a hide and seek in Ali Baba’s shop… there is a pet shop where the pets choose their owners, and a teashop absolutely packed with delights. This is a book for children and their parents, with grand imaginations… and loads to explore. And as the author says, “Just remember – if you don’t believe in fairies, you won’t see anything at all!” This is just the inspiration that folk of all ages need to have a closer look at the cracks in the garden wall, and take a peek under the flowers in the flower pot… there is magic everywhere, you just have to look for it!!!

Milo’s Hat Trick
Milo the Magnificent… is not the most magnificent magician at all, in fact he is quite useless. His boss tells him that he has to perform a great trick or he is fired… off to the woods he goes to find a rabbit, to pull out of his hat. Only trouble is that he doesn’t find a rabbit… he finds a BEAR!!! The bear saves the day, until he becomes extremely tired and has to hibernate… This is a great book, it’s funny, it has excellent “gasp” moments and wonderfully imaginative demonstrations on how to solve a problem, even when things appear to be unsolvable!!!

Beneath
Finn is feeling sad and so is grandpa. Grandpa would like to talk about it, but Finn really doesn’t. So his grandpa takes him for a walk. Finn wants to stay under his cosy quilt, and Grandpa says, “Sure,” and then… they take a walk and look at all the things “beneath.” Beneath the forest floor, beneath a boat, beneath a bird on a nest… it goes deeper: beneath appearances. The illustrations are just gorgeous… all sorts of beautiful discoveries. The further on the adventure they travel, the less Finn needs his quilt, and the more grandpa takes it on. You could read deeper into it, I imagine they have both lost grandma, and together they are figuring things out. This a very sweet, calm and loving bedtime story.

Marvin Wanted More
This is the story of Marvin the sheep who had ambitions. He wanted to bigger and better than all the other sheep, so he starts to snack a little more, and feast a little more and of course he does get bigger, and then bigger and then much bigger. Marvin gets so big that eventually he had to eat the whole world and then he discovers he is now all alone and he has no friends. And while he is agonising over his loneliness he starts to feel unwell, his tummy starts to gurgle and the next thing he throws everything up… and he is the same size as his friends again. Marvin learned a lesson, bigger isn’t always better and friends are so important, especially friends that like you “Just the Way you Are.”

Rene & Glumfoot in the Café at the Edge of the Woods
Rene dreamed of owning a fine restaurant with the fanciest cuisine, so she built her own cabin on the edge of the woods. Then she put up an advertisement for extra help in her restaurant and a weird little man, called Glumfoot, came out of the woods to help her. When her restaurant had no customers, Glumfoot went into the woods to gather some guests, they were all fairly weird and wonderful… and the menu had to be adjusted somewhat: pickled bats and truffle stew, not to mention maggot fondue. Not exactly what Rene had intended, but between her incredible cooking skills and Glumfoot’s plans, they managed to become a popular spot for their incredibly unusual guests.

These books were given to us for review purposes by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This is not a sponsored post and opinions expressed are entirely our own.