A Child of Books

A picture book which celebrates the power of stories and imagination.

Threading through it is a narrative spoken by a child who invites her friend on a journey through landscapes where all types of tales can take place, etched in a font that will be familiar to those who know Oliver Jeffers’ previous books. The illustrations are full of words and letters, shaping extracts from well-known books into whatever environment the children are exploring, using typography in playful ways.

The opening page, with an unadorned picture of a pen, a bottle of ink and a blank sheet of paper, invites readers to weave their own tales and as they move through the book, involve themselves in the many stories that already exist that may influence their own. One spread shows the two children playing hide and seek in a forest accompanied by the text ‘we can lose ourselves in forests of fairy tales’. The tree trunks are books and their branches are made up of strings of words which are phrases from and titles of fairy tales