Each of these two books stars animals’ friendships and kindnesses – as well as gorgeous illustrations.
Monkey’s Friends
Ruth Brown
Andersen Press
ISBN: 978 1 84939 094 1
As monkey swings through the trees and scampers over ground, he runs into a host of other animals he knows – but can you guess who they are? Each spread features a half-page insert that covers part of the animal, but reveals enough to allow kids a good guess is they look sharp, and the rhyming couplets help, too.
It’s a cute book, wrapping up with his friends saying good night at the end of the day. Cute, though, isn’t what makes this great. First, kids love guessing, especially when they have a good chance of getting it right. But even more important to the success of a picture book are the illustrations – and Ruth Brown specializes in beautiful paintings. Her textures – of leaves, and bark, and splashing water – are superb, and her animals gorgeous, yet just this comical side of nature, with cute faces and funny expressions. I love many of her books, and this one is a real delight – can’t wait to share it with a group of preschoolers or kinders!
Help Me!
Paul Geraghty
Andersen Press
ISBN: 978 0 84939 027 9
The African savannah,. as we have all learned from nature shows, is a harsh, unforgiving, hyena-eat-impala world… right? I see you nodding your head. And the opening of this book, at dawn, with animals on the move, seems to be setting it up as another look at the Natural Order Of Things, until, at the last second, over and over, an animal helps another animal.
Now I confess, I read this at first with one eyebrow raised and seriously? ringing in my cynical little head – I am very much a pragmatist and realist about things like food chains, and my daughter watched much of Planet Earth with us, kills and all. I believe in the straight-up on this stuff. But! The cover blurb tells me this is “based on real, documented animal behaviour.” Which. Well. Okay, then. In that case? Let me push my skeptical objections aside and assess it without them.
Verdict? Gorgeous. Both in sentiment and in the stunning, stunning illustrations. It’s sweet without being gooey or sentimentally fake, which is essential for me. But ohmigoodness the paintings. I had to look really closely at them to be sure they weren’t photos with a filter, but no, it’s Geraghty’s watercolours and incredible sense of light that make these images leap off the page. This, my friends, might be better than going on safari. (especially because there are no mosquitoes, but that’s another story.)