The Lights the Dance in the Night by Yuval Zommer

 2022      

  

The text is mainly about stars with a nod to the Northern Lights which are faintly illustrated here.

As we progress through the text we meet many arctic animals and then the people who live in this northern land.

There is a mixture of double spreads, single spreads and pages containing several pictures.  

As with picture books for younger readers, the pictures tell more of the story. In fact, much more of the story is told in the pictures than in the text. The pictures are particularly colourful and full of action.

The story is told in gentle rhyming phrases though some lines don’t rhyme at all. The text is integrated into the pictures.

The text uses a simple font and has simple 'a's and 'g's.

This is quite a large format book so a nursery teacher may also be able to share with a class.  

Find your copy here  

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Here We Are by Oliver Jeffers

                                                    

 

2017

Oliver Jeffers’ Here We Are looks like and behaves like a standard picture book for pre-schoolers. 

It is a large, almost square book and though portrait in orientation it is big enough for adult and child to share. It has scant text which is formatted in an adult serif font with difficult ‘a’s and ‘g’s. The pictures give more information than the text. Yet the information in it is probably for the older child.  Indeed, 

the information in it is so important that it is appropriate that the text is shared between child and adult.
It brings a totally positive message. Its subtitle is “Notes for Living on the Plant Earth”. It is the point of view of parent explaining to a child what the world is about. A message in the front papers says “The book was written in the first two months of your life as I tried to make sense of it all for you”. Or is it that the writer is trying to make sense of it all for himself and other adults? 

We start off with a description of our place in the universe and then we explore the planet Earth in more detail. We look at the land, the sea, and what we can see in the sky at night. Then we move on to the human body and its needs. There are double spreads showing all sorts of human beings and all sorts of animals. The writer recognises that the child will have all sorts of questions. He also tackles time and warns that it goes by quickly. 

There is enough for everyone - physically, intellectually and emotionally. There are a lot of people in the world to love and be loved by. 

The book rejoices in abundance and positivity. 

The only tiny shadow is the warning about time slipping by.