WIGGLE GIGGLE TICKLE TRAIN
By Nora Hilb and Sharon Jennings, illustrated by Nora Hilb with photographs by Marcela Cabezas Hilb, Annick, 32 pages, $19.95, ages 2 to 5
“Up with the sunrise, color it bright./ Dazzle and sparkle, such fiery light./ Good morning!”
So begins an eventful, busy day of small-fry activity, captured in watercolours and photographs and by ditties that make any resistance to wiggling, giggling and tickling most unlikely.
The first double-page spread consists of a photograph of a “fiery” sunrise on the left-hand page, and a watercolour of a small red-headed person painting her version of a sunrise on the opposite page.
This counterpoint of photograph and painting on each spread continues to good effect throughout, the former adding concrete evidence of, say, sun, car, train, duck or horse, while the latter takes the more imaginative, “let's pretend” route. So, for instance, on the next double-page spread, three children and a dog form their own version of a train on one page, and a boldly painted train spreads itself across the facing page. The ditty is, “Train's in the station,/ pulling out fast./ Wiggle and giggle and tickle and laugh. Choo-choo!” At nightfall, a photograph of a pale quarter moon seems to gaze on the sleeping child opposite it. “Cut out the bright moon,/ hang it with thread./ Shimmering, glimmering, over my bed. Sleep tight!”
HARRY AND HORSIE
By Katie Van Camp, illustrated by Lincoln Agnew, Balzer & Bray, 32 pages, $22.50, ages 3 to 6
There's a note from Harry's dad on the first page of this book, telling kids to get ready for “an amazing bedtime adventure … you're about to hear the story of my son, Harry and his best pal, Horsie, and the night that … well. I'll let you find out for yourself.”
The note writer is David Letterman. A little jacket reading tells us that Katie Van Camp, one half of the Canadian writer/illustrator duo behind this picture book, had several previous incarnations, among them teaching ballet and kindergarten in Shanghai and working as an au pair in New York, looking after Harry (and, of course Harry's favourite toy, Horsie).
Lucky Harry. Katie Van Camp can tell a corker of a story. This one begins as a sleepless Harry (and Horsie) decides to take his Super Duper Bubble Blooper down from the shelf where it has been stowed for the night. In seconds, a giant bubble picks up Horsie and floats him out of the room and into the night sky. Harry puts on his helmet and goggles and boards his rocket ship. “Harry blasted past Venus and did a loop around Mars, but there was no sign of Horsie.”
He finds his racing cars on Saturn, roaring around the rings, but no Horsie. He finds Kitty in the Milky Way, her whiskers covered in milk, but no Horsie. Ah, then he spies something dangling from the end of the crescent moon. Soon enough, he's rescued his best pal and, hugging each other, they agree that they will never go anywhere without the other.
The indigo blue of the night sky (and Horsie) dominates the retro comic-style illustrations, casting its own nicely crepuscular light on a story that will appeal to all small fry who can't or won't be separated from a favourite toy.
YOU'RE MEAN, LILY JEAN
By Frieda Wishinsky, illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton, North Winds Press, 32 pages, $19.99, ages 3 to 8
The illustrations for this book, we are told, (on that formal fist page of a book that deals with weighty matters such as copyright) “were first sketched in a light (H) pencil, then painted using Winsor and Newton watercolours. They were finished with acrylic ink lines, oil crayon accents, occasional gouache and a dash of salt.” As might be expected then, a fine and fey insouciance governs Denton's pencil and brush in her delightful illustrations for an equally delightful tale.
Before Lily Jean moves in next door, Carly and her older sister Sandra are inseparable, playing explorers, pirates, mountain climbers and astronauts. But then the charismatic Lily Jean moves in, Lily Jean who “wore shiny red shoes and a puffy red skirt,” Lily Jean who brags that she can play the xylophone and drums and stand on her head and skate backward.
