Copy Cat

Front cover

Copy Cat by Mark Birchall was sent to me by the publishers Child's Play at the end of last year, and I've been meaning to write about it ever since.  A lovely picturebook with a great little message and lots to see in the illustrations. 

"Cat was small and Dog was big, and whatever Dog did, Cat did too..."  Ever been 'copy catted'? This picturebook will go a long way in helping children overcome the frustration of 'putting up' with someone who's always around - it's a story about sharing, playing and being friends.

Back and front covers

Front and back covers make one complete picture, a bright blue sky and just the tips of a hills and mounts with occasional houses and trees on them. The title sits tightly in Cat's parachute, floating in behind Dog, already hinting at who copies who. But as we turn the pages, we'll discover that Cat is actually better than Dog, even if he is copying. Look at his happy face in comparison to Dog's, she looks plain scared!

End papers

The cameos of Cat and Dog on the endpapers continue to show us that Dog isn't as good as Cat at most things.  Cat can skate, Dog can't; Cat's plants grow strong and healthy, Dog's don't ... this message is shown in the illustrations only, throughout the picturebook, and I was left wondering if there is a deviousness to Mark Birchall's story, is he telling us boys are better than girls? That's one to wonder at!

Dedication and copyright page and title page

A fun set of dedications, imitating children's drawings and on the title page, our two characters are busy painting.  Cat copying Dog, but look, even here, Dog paints up side down, left to right, Cat paints upside down and right to left (even more skillful!).  This is a lovely title page, cleverly telling and showing. 

Opening 1

"Cat was small and Dog was big, and whatever Dog did, Cat did too." Dinosaur hunting.  Who saw the dino first?  Balancing on the hire wire, guess who is less wobbly! "'Copycat', said Dog."

Opening 3

They went digging for pirate treasure, and who finds it? Deep sea diving and off to the moon.  

Opening 6

It is here on the moon, that Dog really blew ... "Why must you always follow me?" Dog looks mad, and Cat does too (and in the background we can see that Dog didn't do too well at landing her red rocket).
Next day, Dog went dragon hunting (no Cat), then the day after she went looking for the North Pole (no Cat). She wanted to play soccer, but it's not much fun on your own, so she went to find Cat. 

Opening 9

Poor Cat, he had spots! So Dog looked after him, making him soup, giving him medicine and reading him stories and of course Cat got better.  So much better he went to find Dog, to play with. She wasn't anywhere to be found...

Opening 13

Dog was in bed with spots! Now who's a copycat? And of course Cat has to look after Dog now!   
There's a nice little final verso page, of the two friends, well and happy.  Dog leading with map in hand, but Cat knows the way, he can read the signs!  Off they go to The Great Unknown, together. 


It's a cute little book, nothing complex, just a good story, with a neat little message. The illustrations support the words, but if we look carefully they go beyond them - who really knows what to do and does it better?  But does it matter, as long as we do what we do with friends?

Jane the girl who followed her dreams

Front cover

Me ... Jane is a picturebook about the world famous Jane Goodall.  The author and illustrator, Patrick McDonnell, is the cartoonist who creates the MUTTS strips, and an animal lover inspired by Jane Goodall and her work. Selected as one of the three Caldecott Honour books in 2012 the blurb goes: "Watching the birds and squirrels in her yard, a young girl discovers the joy and wonder of nature. In delicate and precise India ink and watercolor, McDonnell depicts the awakening of a scientific spirit. A perceptive glimpse of the childhood of renowned primatologist Jane Goodall"

I was so pleased when the book arrived in the post, I wasn't sure if it would be suitable but I liked the idea of writing about a book which encourages children to follow their dreams, and Me ... Jane really is just perfect. 

Back cover

It's slightly longer than the average picturebook, 48 pages in all.  But ever page is worth its inclusion.  The book itself looks rather like one of those travel logs.  The front cover has a photo-like image of a blond haired girl holding a chimp (is it real?) stuck onto a background of delicately watercoloured animals in the jungle. If you turn over and look at the back cover this same girl is running, pulling her now obviously toy chimpanzee behind her, and simultaneously we see the real Jane and a real chimp, the dream come true.   

Front endpapers

The endpapers carry the mocca brown colour from the covers, a repeated doodle-like pattern with occasional paint smudges. Could they represent an African pattern?

Title page

The title page brings us back to the real Jane, hugging her toy gorilla, Jubilee.  There are a collection of different images on this page, giving us a taste of what we are likely  to find inside.  Talking about his choices of media and image, Patrick McDonnell says: "One of the things that makes Jane Goodall so special is that she has the mind of a scientist coupled with the heart of a poet. Her way of seeing the world unlocked groundbreaking work with chimpanzees. I wanted Me...Jane to represent these two characteristics. My more impressionistic watercolors evoke her poetic/humanistic soul, and the intricate 19th- and 20th-century engravings of fauna and flora represent her analytical thinking." We see both the watercolours and the engravings here.  

Opening 1

Opening 1 begins the rhythmic visual verbal pattern: recto watercolour and verso engraving and verbal text.  The engravings are sometimes so fine and light we need to peer closely to see them. For a classful of children this would mean leaving the picturebook in the classroom for them to browse through at their leisure, the illustrations certainly deserve of close scrutiny. The adult's arms presenting Jane with a gorilla are significant, McDonnell says: "It was Jane's father who gave her Jubilee in real life; in my book his hands also represent the hands of fate—which set Jane out on the journey of her life." Jane is seen alone in her world with Jubilee for the rest of the book.  Jubilee accompanies her on all the pages, for in real life he was her constant companion. We are shown Jane watching birds making nests, and squirrels climbing trees.  Jane loved the outdoors and when she wasn't outside she was reading about the outside.

Opening 5

Opening 5 is quite different, a page from Jane's own "The Aligator Society" magazine, with notes and sketches she made as a child. This is a lovely spread, and children will enjoy seeing what such a famous person did at their age. 

Opening 8

A cute story from Jane's childhood relates her hiding in Grandma Nutt's chicken coop to discover where eggs come from.  There are three double spreads in sequence which show Jane and Jubilee hiding and watching as a chicken lays an egg.  Each nicely demonstrates McDonnell's choice of watercolour and engraving coming together showing her humanistic soul facing her analytical thinking.: The first opening shows delicate engravings of chickens in the verso, the second a stopwatch with three bunches of wheat tied neatly, the third, seen in opening 8 above, neat rows of eggs.  Each recto the watercolour depiction of a small child entering a hen coop. 

Opening 9

The sequence of verso recto is suddenly broken again in the next opening, a double spread in watercolour with Jane embracing the world and its miracles.  Little chicks pecking on the grass around her, chicks hatched from the very eggs she watched being laid. 

Until now her life has been very much centered upon her own nearby world, but gradually we see her reading about far away places (sitting in her favourite tree called Beech), reading and rereading Tarzan and the apes. The engravings show wild animals...

Opening 12

But upon turning the page, we are told she dreamed of a life in Africa, and the these animals appear large as life in the watercolour recto, to be followed by a double spread all in watercolour of Jane swinging, Tarzan-like through the jungle. 

Opening 14

The following three spreads show Jane going to bed, tucking in Jubilee and falling asleep next to him.  She wakes not in her childhood bedroom but in a tent ...

Opening 17

for her dream has come true ...

Opening 18

The real life photo of Jane and a chimp emphasize the reality of everything.  The last opening a single verso is a sketch Jane made when she was first in the jungle, with notes on the art work that has appeared in the book. There's also an afterword by Jane Goodall, which inspires us all to follow our dreams...

"There are many people who have dreamed seemingly unattainable dreams and, because they never gave up, achieved their goals against all odds, or blazed a path along which others could follow ... They inspire me.  they inspire those around them."

The illustrations appear very faint in my photos, they are gentle illustrations and we do have to look closely to see everything, but it such a lovely picturebook and well worth sharing the message it brings with it.  A small group of children sitting close to the teacher could easily see the illustrations and be helped to talk about some of the things they depict.  Follow up activities could include discovering a little more about Jane Goodall, and the work she does. The Jane Goodall Institute celebrated its 35th anniversary this year.  There is loads to discover on the website by clicking on the links. Then children could investigate chimps and their habitats and possibly even look at engravings and see how they are made.  But  sharing this book and talking about its message is just as good.

The quotes from Patrick McDonnell come from an interview he gave, which can be found here.

The rabbits came many grandparents ago

Front and back covers

The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan is one of those picturebooks that leaves you gaping from a mixture of shock and admiration. It was the third picturebook illustrated by Shaun Tan to reach my bookshelf and to be featured on this blog.  I've featured The Lost Thing and The red tree. 

Both Marsden and Tan are Australians and through this picturebook make a very clear statement about cultural awareness, expertly creating an allegorical tale of colonialism. The Rabbits  has been used in secondary schools since it was published in 1998 in areas of the curriculum that include English, Art and Technology, Philosophy, History, Geography and Environmental Studies.  But has it been used in ELT?  Let's see if I can convince the readers of my blog to consider its possibilities.

I've taken a photo of the front and back covers together - the image is so powerful: a huge ship with a pointed, harpoon-like prow. Napoleon-like creatures stalk around on pin legs, we can't quite make out what they are... though from the title they have to be rabbits. That strip of red on the back cover is actually a collage, a piece of red cloth, fraying at the edges.  Could it be from the flags? Or from the invader's coat?  The words on this fraying piece read:

"The rabbits came many grandparents ago.

They built houses, made roads, had children.

They cut down trees.

A whole continent of rabbits ..."

The front endpapers

The endpapers are a calm blue-lilac.  Clean water, the home to graceful, long legged birds.  What a contrast to the front cover.  Is this the land these invaders have arrived at, that they will soon be invading? 

The half title page

The dark brown half title page imitates the format of a well known flag, with pen-inked squiggly writing and some sort of shield in the centre, superimposed over a map.  You can peer and peer, but nothing can be discerned or made out.  

The title page comes next: a ripped sheet of paper, covering that blue-lilac bird-filled lake. We can see that some of the paper has begun to soak up the water, turning the white into a creeping grey, the birds are moving away from us, their backs are turned and they are all looking to the right, they've seen something we can't see yet.   The white paper  is both a cover as well as a vehicle for the pond life, as flowers are growing from its edges and dragon flies hum towards the dedications. The title font, as on the front cover, is not quite normal, the 'e' has a strange wave under it and the 't' is uncharacteristic.  Are these letters from a past, letters that have changed over time to those we know and recognize today?

Opening 1

Opening 1 confirms our haunch, the birds are indeed fleeing, if the book had sound we would hear their calls of alarm, we would hear the snakes hiss in warning.  What is that strange black chimney in the horizon? What are the fossil-like shapes in the dark cave behind the snakes?  Does Tan want us to think of the time these fossils have taken to form? An age-old land.   We read an invisible narrator's words, "The rabbits came many grandparents ago". 

Opening 2

This illustration is of an immense land, home to tiny creatures, birds and insects.  It has been marked by the wheels of a strange machine, which we can just make out on the horizon.  Two worlds meet and wonder at each other: "They looked a bit like us ..."  they were creatures, they had ears and tails, but they wore clothes and had strange machines... "There weren't many of them. Some were friendly."

And soon more came, and the old people warned us all... "they came by water."  And we see the front and back cover as a spread, even more frightening now as we have begun the story, we know the significance of these strange creatures. 
We are told and shown how different they are:

Opening 5

"They didn't live in trees like we did. They made their own houses." This particular spread gives us information in layers. The slightly lighter blue strip at the top is the original layer and belongs to the narrators. They are sitting in their trees, watching their world change. The darker blue is a superimposed layer, the result of the rabbits: we see both the buildings being built and what they will look like. The buildings are like puzzles, already spewing black smoke. Everything is mechanical, even the rabbits seem so, the symmetry emphasizing the mechanical way they changed the world.  

Opening 6

Not only were the rabbits' homes different, but "...they brought new food, and they brought other animals."   The illustrations show us massive grass eating sheep, machines dressed in lambs' wool.  Cows, already marked for the butcher's knife.  The land is covered in these strange creatures, either in the fields or pilled high on spindly locomotives.  More words tell us that "... some of the animals scared us."  But that's not all, "... some of the food made us sick" (the last three words turned upside down, as though rolling over with belly ache).  The illustration shows a rabbit giving a bottle to the aboriginal creature collaged upon another illustration of a dried up water bed, littered with flapping, gasping fish. 
There was no stopping the rabbits, they spread across the country. There was fighting, "but there were too many rabbits"

Opening 8

"We lost the fights." Those fossils we saw at the beginning, denoting an ancient world, dominated above by the rabbits' flags, the aboriginals, prisoners in their age old world, defeated below. 
The atrocities continue: "They ate our grass. They chopped down our trees and scared away our friends... "

Opening 10

I find this spread the most shocking: hundreds of kites, with baby animals inside, being pulled by strange air machines.  Mother creatures, as though dancing, hands raised towards their children, you can almost hear them moaning.  And the rabbits, big and black, their vertical backs turned against the mothers. They have red and yellow eyes and the peacock feather pens mirror these evil eyes, dripping with the blood red ink they have just used to write on the certificates. These contain the verbal text of this page, each word on a separate sheet of paper, as though being spoken in jerks of distress,  "and . stole . our . children."

Opening 11

"... everywhere we look there are rabbits."  The statue in recto, a large rabbit, the motto MIGHT = RIGHT.  A grey automated world, polluted and literally filled with rabbits, right to the very edges of the page.  Can you see the only aboriginal creatures on the steps of the statue?  The fallen kite? The rabbits holding masks? The gigantic curved chimneys, sucking in the blue sky and puffy clouds? A curious image, a frightening image.
"The land is bare and brown and the wind blows empty across the plains. Where is the rich dark earth brown and moist? Where is the smell of rain dripping from the trees? Where are the lakes, alive with long legged birds?"
A final verso page shows a small cameo illustration against a black background.  Two solitary creatures, a rabbit and an aboriginal. 

Back verso

"Who will save us from the rabbits?".  The land is wasted, littered with bones, lost and broken pieces of machinery and empty bottles.  A small water hole reflects the stars in the sky.  Can we read this as an image of hope?  Is there any hope left? If we turn again to the back endpapers, we return to the bird-filled lake of cool lilac-blue water. A distant memory?  A possible future?


When I first saw this picturebook I got goose bumps, and every time I look at it I get that goose bumpy feeling. It's quite something.  A simple verbal text alongside such complex visual images, makes for much interpretation.  There are many issues here and therefore lots of opportunities for talk and discussion.  If you are teaching English through history, could this picturebook be of use? If your programme includes such topics as multiculturalism, could it be of use? Or, if you happen to have a group of interested teenagers, keen to talk and discuss, keen to put the world to rights, could this book be of use?  I'd say 'yes' on all three occasions.   

Funny face - funny faces

Front cover

I discovered Funny Face by Nicola Smee while reading an article by a friend and colleague Janet Evans.  

The front cover shows a simply drawn but bold looking face, smiling.  The back cover gives a photo album-like view of the same face demonstrating all sorts of emotions and the blurb reads: 

"One little boy, one big bear.  Many different faces!"

That's it in a nutshell!

Funny Face is a board book, so it contains none of the peritextual features a picturebook can include (like endpapers or title pages), the reader moves from front cover to the story pages immediately. I say story pages because even though this is a concept book, there is a narrative to it.  Each verso page shows the story and each recto the emotion evoked by the happenings in the story.  I find this very useful as it contextualizes each emotion, making it clearly understood by the children you are sharing it with. 

There are seven different faces in all, showing a range of emotions and we start with the happy face:

Opening 1

"I love playing with my ball." ... so I'm happy because that's what I'm doing.   As we read this we can use a light hearted voice expressing happiness, so children hear and see the emotion. 

Opening 2

But what happens next?  "Ooh!  A big bear!", children call out this emotion as soon as they see the illustration, the child in the book is so clearly surprised!   

Opening 3

Oh no!  The bear takes the ball and the children will all call out "he's crying", and he is, but what emotion is he showing us? And his dog too! He's sad.  It's a sad face. 

Turn the page ... Naturally once the feeling of sadness dissipates, anger takes over. The words tell us, "I'm very, very angry".  The pictures show us a cross looking boy and the dog is shaking his fist at the bear as he lumbers off behind a tree. Children will empathize with this change of feelings, they will have felt similarly.  Another page turn ...

Opening 5

Anger moves to confidently being rude!  "Here's what I think of you, big bear!" As the reader you can say this arrogantly, and even blow a raspberry!  That is one naughty face!  Turn the page ... But STOP! "Oops!  I think the big bear is coming back - with more bears!"  The illustrations show the dog and boy looking at each other worriedly. The face shows a clearly worried look.  Let's turn the page again...

Opening 7

The bears are ever closer and the boy and his dog are clearly terrified. As we read the words, "What do they want?", we can slightly stutter and make our mouth quiver.  The children you are sharing this book with will be leaning backwards slightly and their mouths will quiver as they say loudly "He's frightened". 

Opening 8

Why, all the bears wanted was to play!  Hooray!  And so we are all happy again and full circle we come back to a happy face. 

The very last page is a firm favourite showing all the different emotions and a mirror where  children can peer at their own funny faces!  (You'll have to excuse the photo here, my arm and blue sunny sky instead of a child's face is reflected in the mirror!)

Opening 9

Funny Face. Nothing complicated, a simple story and a load of faces, but it works really well and children request this book over and over. Remember that even if the children call out in their own language when you turn the pages, it's OK, they are demonstrating they have recognized the emotion, which is after all the objective of this little book.  It is our job to help them say these emotion words in English, which isn't too difficult, especially if it is re-read many times. Recast and paraphrase what they say and gradually the children's calls should turn into English calls as the pages are turned and they gleefully demonstrate they can recognize emotions and label them in English.

Two penguins who do everything together

Front cover

Fluff and Billy by Nicola Killen arrived last week.  What a cute little book, so cute I had to feature it immediately.  Cute in the sense of being endearing and clever at the same time. And just perfect for pre-school children, with the natural repetition in the verbal text and the expressive illustrations. 

Fluff and Billy are two penguins, great friends, who do everything together. Fluff has red feet and Billy has yellow chest feathers.  The painted font on the cover helps us focus on their different features, highlighting their differences, despite both being penguins. Here they are on the back cover, swimming together under water.  

Back cover

Though red and yellow appear on the front cover, it is blue and yellow which are the two base colours, and white of course.  Yellow introduces us to the two penguins, it appears as we open the paperback version of this picturebook in a recto page splatted with yellow paint, followed by a further spread, a yellow background with an oval window showing the two penguins, wings touching as though holding hands. 

Opening 1

The copyright page brings us the blue, that deep sea we saw on the back cover.  The two penguins are speeding forward into the book and a splat of blue slap bang in the middle of the title page repeats the front cover combination of these three words, "Fluff and Billy", the birds' names written with a paintbrush and brought together with an "and" written in Times Roman(?), the rest of the title is also in the same font. 

Copyright and title page

The play between these two font types continues within the picturebook pages.  The paint brush font represents the birds' voices and the other the narrator's.  You may also have noticed that Fluff's font is slightly darker than Billy's. 

Let's begin ... as though we haven't already!

Opening 2

I think this is one of my favourite spreads.  Look at the movement! Those blue foot prints on the verso spread  pushing us upwards as the penguins rush up the snowy hill and then zooming down the hill following the bluey dots as the penguins slide on their bellies.  The font slopes up and down too, and the verbal text comes twice each time, first it's Fluff, then it's Billy.  Each doing the same thing, so their voices repeated. As the mediator you can use slightly different voices too. Then ...

Opening 3

Aaaaaaa!  Aaaaaaa!  Now that looks fun. Lines and dots again showing movement and that crack in the ice on verso once again pushing our gaze across the spread.  Those splodges of yellow just adding a touch of sparkle to the page. 

Fluff and Billy go swimming, "I'm swimming" they both say; then splashing.  Fluff runs here and Billy runs here. 

Opening 6

Fluff jumps up and so does Billy, but woah!  That is one big jump, shown in the illustrations (we can only see his legs as he jumps out of the page!) but also the way the font has been turned on its side and is whooshing up, following Billy off that page. 

Opening 7

We see the result on the next spread.  Fluff looks worried as Billy lands on his head, those yellow splodges falling around him and things change, Fluff rolls a snowball, but Billy throws one ... right at Fluff. But that's not right, don't they always do the same thing?
"'Ouch!" cried Fluff".  On the next three spreads, we see the two friends sitting back to back, but apart, one on each side of the spread, separated first by the penguins words, "I'm not talking to you".  Their feelings are so visible, from their postures, the way their heads are tilted upwards.  They are as frosty as the snow around them.  

Opening 9

On the next spread it is the narrator who reinforces the point: "Fluff said nothing." "Billy said nothing." The penguins don't look quite so haughty.  Then ...

Opening 11

No need for words, we all know how both these penguins are feeling. And so Fluff tickles Billy, and Billy tickles Fluff. 

Opening 13

And they laugh ... "together!"  Yellow and blue in soft floating shapes. Friends again. 
But that's not the end, remember that yellow spread at the beginning of the book, well here it is again, but this time the penguins are leaving, wings touching, rushing off into more adventures. 

Spread 14

One of the cleverest picturebooks I've seen in a while: it's visually exciting and tells a real story, one of friendship, falling out and making up. The illustrations provide brilliant examples of emotions for children to see and talk about. And, as an added bonus, everything gets said twice!  Love it, love it, love it. A MUST for all early years English classrooms.