Confetti and Cakes and Cats, Oh My!

The Adventures of Miss Petitfour
Anne Michaels, illustrated by Emma Block
Bloomsbury
December 2015
Hardback
$19.99

miss_petifourDigressions are things that should occur once things have begun. Don’t you think? One couldn’t possibly begin with a digression when there is nowt yet to digress from.
Of course, I could have begun and then gone off on a digression but I’ve always been a little contrary. I do love a good digression. It is in life’s digressions that one finds the adventure, the pith, the meaning. Does this have anything to do with the story at hand? No, not a whit. Continue reading

“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar

Alice in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll, Illustrated by Rébecca Dautremer
Hodder
Dec 2015, RRP $29.99

alice_in_wonderland_dautremerEnglish speaking readers might not be familiar with Rébecca Dautremer. It might be informative to think of her as a sort of French Shaun Tan. On the other hand, it might be just as true to say that Shaun Tan is an Australian Rébecca Dautremer. It all depends on one’s perspective. Rébecca Dautremer is the illustrator of over forty children’s books, many of which have never been translated for Anglophones. Her illustrations are gentle, thoughtful and brimming with a charm and surreal beauty that renders each page into something that touches upon the ethereal.

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      THE STRIPED WORLD Emma Jones ISBN: 978 0 571 24538 3 For myself, I first discovered Australian poet Emma Jones last year in a Dublin bookshop, lonely and heartsick, rooting through the bargain shelf for something modestly priced that would change my life. The other book I bought that day … Continue reading