6+ Years – Bookmonitor – news from around the world

When We Became Humans by Michael Bright

A story of evolution, how we as humans developed into the upright, intelligent form that we are today, from our recent cousins the Neanderthals to ourselves, Homo Sapiens. A large format highly illustrated book which follows in the success of When the Whales Walked.

One stop guide to discovering your origins
Exquisite illustration which brings the subject to life
Engagingly explores this key topic for Key Stage 2 pupils

The sections of the book are easy to follow from ‘How do we know who our ancestors were? to ‘Just Like Us’, which explores how the Neanderthals also liked to use jewellery and clothes.

At the back of the book there is a section on the human family tree and a world map showing how humans have always travelled on and and sea.

Michael Bright is an executive producer with the BBC Natural History Unit and has written over 60 books on aspects of natural history and conservation and the environment.

Hannah Bailey is an illustrator and designer inspired by the natural world and specialises in natural history and non-fiction for children.

Words and Pictures are part of the Quarto Group and aim to produce books that inspire and enable children to think and use their imaginations.

Recommended for ages 6-10, a great book to have for schools and at home.

Sue Martin

Bookmonitor is our news source for reviews and project information.

Books go Walkabout is our international books and literacy project - connecting authors and illustrators with children and young people around the globe.

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Migrations – Open Hearts, Open Borders

Migrations - cover image and text link — Buy this beautiful, moving book here…

Illustrators from around the world joined in the creation of a unique book to show their personal visions of the migrant crisis.

Migrations – Open Hearts, Open Borders is a beautiful and poignant book created by using a selection of images and postcards from illustrators around the world. The message alongside the image are packed with meaning in a few words; Petr Horacek from the Czech Republic and the UK writes, ‘ Everything is possible, you were born free.’

The images are all part of an exhibition touring the world, as in migrations; South Africa, Korea and UK, currently at Amnesty International, London.

Available on 8th October 2019 – buy this book here…

The book is dived into themes of Departures, Long Journeys, Arrivals and Hope for the Future and the fifty postcards and images selected for the book produce thought provoking statements, e.g.

‘Wishing that everyone who crosses a vast and furious ocean with hope for a better future will be met with a warm welcome by the generous hearted. Safe journey.’ Peter Lynch, Ireland.

‘The skies have no borders.’ Christopher Corr, UK

‘ One can always go and one can always return.’ Gabriela Germain Fonck, Chile.

The book has been published by Otter-Barry Books, who have a reputation for creating books that reflect the world in which we live.

The event to mark the publication of the book was held in London and included some of the most talented illustrators.

At Books Go Walkabout, we too look for a hope for the future in accepting that migration is here to stay and should mean there is a warm welcome for all those who take on life long journeys.

Recommended for all ages at school, at home, in the libraries and in everyone’s pockets!

Sue Martin

Proud to follow Amnesty International

The Phoenix of Persia

The Phoenix of Persia

By Sally Pomme Clayton, illustrated by Amin Hassanzadeh Sharif, published by Tiny Owl.

An incredible and innovative book! It is produced as a collaboration between many organisations, including Arts Council England and City of London University.

The Phoenix of Persia is an ancient story from Iran and often stories would be set to music as part of the story telling, bringing the story to life. It is about a mythical bird, the Simorgh, who takes care of a tiny baby, who grows up to become Prince Zal, the hero of many stories in an epic story from Iran called the Shahnameh.

For thousands of years, in many cultures around the world, stories have been accompanied by music and poems, with illustrations bringing the story to life.

This new book, brings all of those aspects together, a story from times long gone, illustrations which are exceptionally colourful and imaginative. Music is brought to you via a QR code onto any smart device. The story comes alive and is read to you with accompanying music, such a good idea!

The Teachers Resource Pack is full of brilliant information and ideas of how to use the book in the classroom. A terrific resource, for literacy, arts, music and PSE.

The Phoenix of Persia is about a baby who is much longed for by the King and Queen, but he is rejected by the King as he has white hair. He is taken away to the mountains and left. The Simorgh bird, who is flying overhead, hears the cries and takes the baby to bring up as her own.

This is a story with a happy ending, but I will leave that for you to read and find out.

Buy this book here, with free delivery!

The author, Sally Pomme Clayton, is a story teller and a dream weaver, captivating all with her words on folk tales and forgotten myths, among many other things too.

The illustrator, Amin Hassanzadeh Sharif is from Tehran and in the Teachers Resources you can find out just how some of the techniques can be created.

Tiny Owl Publishers have created a beautiful book and an amazing resource which will bring diversity directly into children’s lives both at home and at school.

We thoroughly recommend for ages from 3 – 11 years and for parents too.

Sue Martin

Books and authors, around the world…

We Build Our Homes

We buld our homes - book cover and weblink — Biuy this book with free delivery…

We Build Our Homes is a beautiful book to have and to read. It is packed with information about how different creatures make their homes. Each page has a stunning picture with the text woven into the illustrations.

Another great book from Lorna Knowles and Chris Madden.

The front cover is beautiful, and shows a shiny blue, bower bird making his home with all sorts of useful and interesting things, like a wrist band and jam jar top.

On the back of the book a beaver wanders across his lodge as he makes a dam under which he and his family can live.

Buy this book here with free delivery….

These are small stories of incredible animal architects. It is not only humans who can create incredible structures around the world; there are weaver birds, gophers, termites, honey bees, meerkats and moles.

The world map shows locations and key facts for each animal with lists for mini beasts builders and mammal builders.

We Build Our Homes follows on from Laura’s previous book called We Travel So Far and Once Upon a Jungle, The Coral Kingdom, and It Starts with a Seed, which was awarded the Margaret Mallett Award for Children’s Non-fiction.

Laura Knowles has a love of natural history and along with Chris Madden, they have produced this creative and visual book of facts and creatures, making every little creature come alive on every page.

A great book from publishers Word and Pictures, part of The Quarto Group, making books open the doors of children’s imagination and exploring other worlds.

Recommended for all ages and especially for ages 6-10 years.

Sue Martin

The Skies Above My Eyes

The skies are full of so many things and this newly published book is packed full of all you could ever want to know about life above our eyes.

The Skies Above My Eyes is written by Charlotte Guillain and illustrated by Yuval Zommer, published by Words and Pictures, who have produced this beautiful book in an explosive style format.

You can lift out all the pages in one go. The bottom pages are the closest to the earth reaching high into the skies through the stratosphere, thermo-sphere and crossing the Karman Line into space.

Buy this book with free delivery here…

It’s a dream book for anyone interested in the skies and our planet.

Charlotte Guillain lives in the UK and writes fiction and non fiction for children. Her book, The Street Beneath My Feet was shortlisted for the UKLA 7-11 Book Award 2018. She writes in a style that appeals to all and enables bite size pieces of information to be presented in very easily digested chunks!

Yuval Zommer graduated from the Royal College of Art and after working in advertising is now successfully illustrating children’s books. His debut book was much acclaimed,called The Big Blue Thing on the Hill.

Words and Pictures are part of the Quarto group and have some amazing books, of which The Skies Above My Eyes is one of the best.

Recommend for all ages and especially for 6-9 years

Sue Martin

Mr Chicken Lands on London by Leigh Hobbs

Mr Chicken Lands on London - cover image and web link — Buy a Leigh Hobbs title here…

Mr Chicken arrives in London via parachute, without wasting any time on immigration control he sets off to see as many of the famous sights as he possibly could.

He sails over the Houses of Parliament, and lands in the River Thames.

Although no-one seemed to notice and heads off to the Savoy Hotel, which is THE place to stay in London.

Mr Chicken visits Buckingham Palace and has tea with the Queen before heading off across Piccadilly Circus and the London Eye. Amazingly, Mr Chicken blends in well with the local people and other tourists before heading back home ‘down under’.

A brilliant picture book about a loveable character making his way across the centre of London. Explore the city of London with Mr Chicken and find all the most famous sights. Leigh Hobbs is excellent at portraying characters in different places and Mr Chicken Arrives in London is part of a series of books about travels into European cities.

Buy the book button - image and web link — …with free delivery!

Leigh Hobbs is an award-winning writer and illustrator of a whole range of books, including the Mr Chicken series, Old Tom, Horrible Harriet and my favourite, Mr Badger.

He was Australian Children’s Laureate in 2016-17 travelling and visiting schools as an advocate for children’s books. He has an amazing collection of titles. Leigh lives in Melbourne, Australia and is also an artist, a sculptor, and indeed a great traveller himself.

Leigh Hobbs studio - image and book purchase web link — Buy a Leigh Hobbs title on-line here…

Mr Chicken is published by Allen and Unwin, Australia and is available in the UK. Click the book image to buy.

Books Go Walkabout have planned a tour of schools and organisations in the UK for Leigh this autumn, October 2018. He is a great hit with the schools and children and instantly gets children interested in Mr Chicken and other characters, looking at; how to draw a character, how to add the text and best of all how to make the book fun.

We recommend Mr Chicken Lands on London for ages 4-9 and of course parents too.

Sue Martin

Authors connected with audiences across the world…

Plantopedia, A Celebration of Nature’s Greatest Show-offs by Adrienne Barman

Welcome to the greatest show on earth, featuring the most tremendous trees and tiniest seeds, flowers masquerading as twinkling stars and very confused fruit and vegetables!

This is an incredible, non-edible, fun-loving and intellectually desirable book about plants! Plants from all over the world, chosen for their unique traits and characteristics, their abilities in disguise, and captivation, who is the cleverest, the plants or the insects?

Discover the ‘evergreens’, the ‘edibles’, the ‘elderly’ plants that have outlived the dinosaurs.

The budding naturalists among the students will be absorbed totally by the quirky text, wealth of fascinating information and stylish illustrations. Watch out for the section on poisonous plants, which is led by an illustration of a skeleton in clothes; it includes plants such as Feverfew, Henbane and Strychnine tree.

It is a book that I keep picking up and reading from, remembering the bite sized pieces of information.

Adrienne Barman is the author and illustrator and produces very colourful and stylish work. She lives in Geneva having illustrated many books.

WideEyed is part of the QuartoKnows publishing group and has an amazingly interesting list of children’s books.

We thoroughly recommend this book for schools and libraries and especially for the families kitchen table, a book to have and to dip into, it will be a joy to have.

Sue Martin

10 Reasons To Love A Whale and 10 Reasons To Love A Bear

10 Reasons to love a whale cover image — Buy this book here…

The whale and the bear are the latest books to join the ’10 Reasons to Love’ series. Beautiful books, in hardback with an endearing whale or bear shaped hole in the cover, just waiting to be opened.

The combination of text and illustrations works really well, providing facts and interesting features, things that you will remember.

Did you know that whales are the original globetrotters? They travel from the polar regions to the equator and on their way, eat 40 million krill every day!

10 Reasons to Love a bear cover image — Buy this book here…

Bears wiggle and dance scratching their backs against a tree and pandas even do hand stands to leave the right mark!

The books deal with environmental issues and conservation and enable the reader to understand and love more about the animal. They are a perfect match for school work or just for reading at home.

Catherine Barr is the author, and has a long running interest in environmental campaigns, working with Greenpeace and as an editor at The Natural History Museum.

Hanako Clulow, the illustrator, left Japan for Ireland in 1997 and studied visual arts and English. her art work draws on her huge interest in nature and animal kingdoms.

Lincoln Children’s Books, in conjunction with the Natural History Museum, are the publishers. The first edition came out on March 1st 2018 and we are sure it will have a huge success.

Sue Martin

A Child’s Garden of Verses

A beautifully presented hard back book of A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson and illustrated by Michael Foreman in this magical new edition from Otter-Barry Books.

The verses were first published in 1885, so reflect quite a different era. In 1985, Michael Foreman created the wonderful water-colour illustrations which bring a soft and ephemeral magic to the poems.

This latest edition published in 2017, from Otter-Barry has a foreword from Alexander McCall Smith, who begins by saying about Stevenson,” He not only knows what children like, but he likes it along with them”

McCall Smith tells of Stevenson’s childhood in a family of lighthouse engineers, but he suffered from ill-health and spent much time in his sickbed. May be that it was here that he dreamed and thought of the world beyond. It was also in the Victorian times, when travel to far away places was possible for those with money to spend.

The poems are a delight and can conjure up images of gentle childhoods, as in The Swing,

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown

Up in the air I go flying again

Up in the air and down.

One of my favourite illustrations is from My Shadow, a poem that will stay with you once read.

This book will make a wonderful present and will add to any school, library and home collection. I am off to read some of the poems now, by the fireside and ready to dream!

Sue Martin

Books Go Walkabout

Mr Badger and the Magic Mirror by Leigh Hobbs

Mr Badger is a portly badger who gets into scrapes and adventures in Boubles Grand Hotel, where he works very hard.

Mr Badger and the Magic Mirror, is the fourth in the Mr Badger series from Australian Children’s Laureate, Leigh Hobbs.

One day a mirror is moved from the room of Sir Cecil Smothers-Carruthers to a place above the stairs.

But something is not quite right, Mr Badger inspects the mirror, and ends up falling straight through it, a magic mirror! The adventure has started and Mr Badger finds much more than he had bargained for!

A brilliant books with characters emerging from every page, illustrated with line drawings and bringing the book and Mr Badger to life.

Really good for children from 6 – 8 years, and for sharing with adults, who may just end up reading the book to themselves!

Leigh visits the UK regularly and we are pleased to work with Leigh for any events in the UK.

Sue Martin