Judging A Book By Its Cover
Do you judge a book by its cover?
If not, here is one book that will teach you that you can!
Despite teaching children that you can’t judge a book by its cover, I have to admit that I do, especially when it comes to children’s books. If the illustrations don’t immediately appeal, I’m less likely to read the story. I suspect that the same goes for children.
Look! A Book! is by award-winning illustrator Bob Staake. It has been an instant attention-grabber for me. Look! A Book! is a rhyming visual treasure hunt. Die-cut holes reveal aspects of the fantastic illustration on the next page and the text gives clues as to what to look for – “Look! A bone! A cone! A pumpkin phone! A clock! A sock! A toothy croc!”
The text is great fun but it is really the illustrator’s fanciful illustrations that steal the show. Each page bursts with colour, off-beat zany characters and some truly ridiculous things such as a lobster walking the streets of New York picking its way through discarded baseballs and slices of pizza. How about an elephant stuck in a tree house with a tuxedo-clad pelican looking on. The book ends with a rhyme and a foldout page that asks readers to start searching all over again, this time for one cow, two bicycles, and three pigs and so on until they find twelve red books.
We all refer to Adobe Photoshop with some light-hearted dismissal when looking at models in magazines but the reality is that those who master this application do fantastic stuff with it.
I am impressed by the fact that Staake does all his illustrations using only the mouse (no stylus) and Adobe Photoshop 3. To see what I mean, watch the clip of Staake at Sparkle and Spin Studio.
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