We read for pleasure; perhaps this way we find out more about ourselves. Pleasure comes first, a fact that is often lost when a book is overanalysed, always a danger when questions follow a pattern of interpretation designed to trace a line around a response. Picture books are particularly vulnerable, as their words are few and they are becoming more sophisticated, drawing on traditional, modern and symbolic art. Whether a child will find delight would be my first criterion for the purchase of a picture book. It doesn’t have to be all sweetness and light: a shiver of fear may be just as engrossing as laughter.
There Once Was A Boy Called Tashi by Anna Fienberg and Barbara Fienberg, illustrated by Kim Gamble
Allen & Unwin, 27.95hb, 32pp
The Boy, the Bear, the Baron, the Bard by Gregory Rogers
Allen & Unwin, $27.95hb, 32pp
The Great Montefiasco by Colin Thompson, illustrated by Ben Redlich
Lothian, $26.95hb, 32pp
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