Emily Gravett's bear

And on we go with my very favourite of Emily Gravett's  books, Orange Pear Apple Bear.  This little book is a gem. It's difficult to talk about the illustrations alone, for the pictures and words are truely united. Emily Gravett uses just five words, 'orange' 'pear' 'apple' 'bear' 'there', and with them she creates a beautifully illustrated, delightfully visual, word play.  Superb.

In a skillful "done-in-a-sec" look, she uses watercolour and crayon, against a clear, white background. Her illustartions ooze volumn, leaving you wanting to eat the fruit and hug the bear.   In fact the whole thing is delicious!  The whole thing, from cover, through the front matter, the endpapers,  the copywrite page and the title page, all carefully thought out to bring a whole visual experience. So how does she manage a whole book with just five words? By combining the visual and the verbal to imply a subtle humour in the simple placement of two words. 

The cover presents our four objects, a clever bear, balancing three pieces of fruit on his head.  He has a querky sort of look, his eyes dots of cheeky black, his eyebrows raised.  

The front endpapers, show us a neat row of the three pieces of fruit again, and if you take a peek at the back endpapers you'll see that time has passed and the same pieces fruit are shown nibbled, munched or as  piles of peel.  This row of fruit follows us as we turn to the copyright and title pages.  Publishing info is in a neat pear shape, the Macmillan Children's Book logo makes a great flag-like leaf.  And the title page brings our bear back, peeking from the fold, the three fruit now balancing on his paw.  He is good!

And so we start, (as if we hadn't already!).  Object and label, visual mirrors the words, as though presenting each performer before the play begins.  But even with just four words and four illustrations, we are already rhyming.  "Orange" "Pear" (pause as you turn the page) "Apple" "Bear".  

And the bear is doing a sort of "Ta, ta!"  pose! His arms stretched out, "Here I am" kind of thing.  Yeah! 

"Apple, pear" (pause as you glance across the spread) "Orange bear".  

Simple change of word order, lack of punctuation and orange has become an adjective, and our modest bear looks like he's trying to hide his privates!  Then it happens again.  "Orange pear" "Apple bear", and our bear's round bottom is apple-like, round and juicy, pinky green.  What a surprise!  

Can you guess what happens next? Of course you can, like all good stories it's predictable.  A coy bear is sitting with his back to us, and he's a lovely pear shape, a green pear shape.  "Apple, orange, pear bear."  

Then a change of rhythm, "Orange, pear, apple, bear".  Punctuation appears, big time, and some children will notice this, and over re-reads they may even associate the way you read this page, and the next, with the appearance of these commas.   

"Apple, bear, orange, pear".  The words are falling diagonally from top to bottom on the recto page, visually reflecting the fruit the bear has thrown.  Then "Orange, bear" and the orange is gone.  

The way we read this phrase could imply a query, maybe even suprise.  And each fruit now gets eaten - the bear's large mouth, open wide, catching the fruit; biting the fruit. "Pear, bear" "Apple, bear" ... And he's gone! "There!"  

The endpapers show us the remains of our story ... cores and peel.   

Now wasn't that amazing?  So simple, so clever.  Great illustrations, rhyme, rhythm and repetition, fun with punctuation, and a silly end. What more could you wish for from a picturebook?

Younger children will love "Orange Pear Apple Bear",  and request it again and again.  They'll pick up the rhythmic words quickly and help you tell the story over re-reads.  They'll pause when you do, run when you do, be flamboyant when you are, imitating and learning as they go. And you never know they might start drawing their own fruit and animal mixtures and bring you some delightful drawings.  

Emily Gravett's chameleon

Image on opening page of Emily Gravett's website 

Happy New year!

I thought I'd start this year with a look at one of my favourite illustrators, Emily Gravett. There's an interesting article to be read in the Telegraph from 2007, which gives you an idea of how she began her life as an illustrator. 

What I love about her illustrations is that they are so skillfull - she's a good old fashioned drawer - and most of her books are brilliantly illustrated using crayon / graphite, with watercolour washes.  She also uses ripped paper collages in some titles.  Here's a great video of her drawing "Cave Baby" for a book she illustrated with Julia Donaldson (author of The Gruffalo)

I bought Wolves first, her debut book and an award winning title, and then it was just a case of collecting them -  lovely, lovely illustrations alongside a great sense of visual humour.  

I thought I'd share Blue Chameleon in my first post about her. It has a simple minimal text, and lovely sketchy illustrations.  Here you can see the covers, front and back, which introduce our hero, a sad looking, blue chameleon.  On the back cover there are three adjectives, each one crossed out, describing our chameleon and at the same time giving us a clue about what happens inside the book.  

As with all good picturebooks the endpapers contribute to the narrative, the front endpapers show us a glum looking pale chameleon.  And the copyright / dedication page is lovely too.   The information is shown in the shape of a chameleon!

And so the story continues with an image of chameleon, sitting in a pose similar to that on the front cover, with a thought bubble saying, "I'm lonely".  The words describe the chameleon "Blue chameleon", but blue is referring to his mood and his colour.   Each page has lots of white, which enhance the drawings and make them all the more stunning. The chameleon changes colour and shape depending on what he sees. And each time there's a speech bubble which brings something extra and humorous to each spread.  As you can see from the image below, the chameleon represents the colour, and each object is drawn and labelled neatly on each facing page.  We could say it was rather like a concept book, to reinforce colours and adjectives, but it's one with a difference for there's a story there too.  

As we turn the pages, visually there's always a pattern, the chameleon remains on the left and the object on the right. 

... and so the chameleon meets a pink cockatoo and says "Hello Hello Hello"; a swirly snail, and says "Nice to meet you"; 

... a brown boot (a cowboy boot) and says, "Howdy" of course!; a stripy sock and says "Can I hang out with you?"; a spotty ball (purple spots, which he imitates beautifully) and says "Pssst"; a gold fish, whose scales he cleverly captures, and he just blows silent bubbles.

Then finally he meets a green grasshopper  and he jumps across the double spread for the first time, breaking the visual routine, it's quite shocking to see him in desperation, with a stripy yellow / green belly, imitating the grasshopper and calling out, "Come back".  Poor chameleon.

And that's it.  He gives up.  We see him lying on a rock, all grey. Holding his head and visibly sighing. Notice how the words have returned to left and right, but the chameleon is mostly on the right hand, recto page. 

The penultimate page is all white, "White page", but if you look closely you can see a relief outline of the chameleon lying down and a hand is extended from off page, a hand similar to chameleon's, and a speech bubble "Hello?". That question mark is all important.  I've mentioned speech bubbles before, but children love them in this book and they begin reading them very quickly.  They certainly notice the question mark as it is the first bit of punctuation so far. And yikes, turn the page.   "Colourful chameleons"  greeting one another. 

A great ending, and the back endpapers contribute.  Different from the front ones, showing the two, colourful chameleons and a butterfly.  Off they go, no longer lonely.  Hooray!

Couldn't get much simpler really and such humour too.  Younger kids love this title and chant the colours and objects along with you after just a few readings.  They also enjoy listening to what the chameleon says, and laughing at the jokes.  "Pssst" is their favourite!