Sunday, December 18, 2011

Read This: Seasons

I love this book.  So much.  I really bought it for me--but am happy to share it with Beeper too.   It is entitled, Seasons, and is by the fantastically talented french illustrator, Blexbolex.  It is a thick book, grainy image stacked upon image, printed on this creamy paper that evokes the drawing paper I most commonly used as child.
It is a book about, naturally, the seasons and the everyday wonders and activities and things and moments that mark the evolution of the seasons for us...
...but it is also a book of analogies, opposites, cause and effect, words that sound a little alike when you say them aloud, related things, images that rebound between one another in their similarities, and some more oblique pairings.
It is a visual meal so rich you can dig right in (no need for fork or knife), but it is also good for conversations about the details in the images and how these connect to the bold red letters that label each image.  It informs, and invites imagining of the story that is there between the images. 
The bright colors, the bold red block-style text, the stark layered screen-printed images are so much happiness for my eyes.  And I love that the book feels both modern and retro--just  looking at this book I get nostalgia for the library I used to visit as a 5-year-old and the alphabet book I loved most there, but it also feels cool enough to set out on my coffeetable for others to enjoy.  I so, so highly recommend this book--it would make a most lovely holiday gift for your child, or for your artsy friend, or your hip niece in art-school.  If you want to see more, there is a lovely little Youtube video about the book put together by the publisher--check that out here.

5 comments:

Sheila@Chinaberry said...

This is a beautiful book. And I think showing young children beautifully designed books from early on is so important. Thanks for sharing!

Holly said...

Sheila--I so agree with you. I think it develops their sense of creativity and their appreciation for a variety of styles and approaches.

MammaBearFlint said...

I have to get this book for my family. It's beautiful. Thank you:)

MammaBearFlint said...

What an awesome book. I'll definitely have to get this for my family:)
So glad I found your blog

krebscout said...

I have a small-but-growing collection of unique and beautiful children's books. I received this one for my last birthday, and I sat down and read through it twice. It's instant love when a book can make me really feel something. The last page (after everything it takes to get there) is perfect.