If this is your first visit to the site we have long maintained that children have the ability to be much smarter than they are. Also, welcome to this kidlit corner of the internet, take off your shoes and relax. By the first statement I mean that if we teach kids as the smart sponge-like vehicles they are and expect more from them, they’ll level up. One aspect of that, as well as, the difficulty and brilliance of the English language is how specific it is. There is a precise word for most anything, that’s one reason why mastering it as a second language is challenging. 365 Words for Clever Kids! is a book whose content fourth and fifth-grade kids need to know. Those fourth-grade kids will know some of the words and fifth-grade kids might know about half of them. However, it will behoove any student in those grades and higher to have been exposed to them.
For a couple of reasons, I love wordless books. The art allows readers to use their imagination to propel the story further and gives the artist a chance to use nuanced expressions that might otherwise be filled in by words. Jim Curious and the Jungle Journey is a wordless book with a twist. It’s a little bit Indiana Jones, Fury Road, and steampunk, but is in 3-D. That might seem gimmicky, but the effect really works. As a matter of fact, the 3-D effects in Jim Curious are so effective that you’ll be scratching the pages to see if they’re really lenticular photographs.
Lenticular photos are those photographs that appear to have their subject move as you, or the image change perspective. Dan Kainen has a fabulous series of books about wildlife using this technique. When I was a kid there were also some trading cards that used an earlier form of that technology.
If you look at Jim Curious and the Jungle Journey without the 3-D glasses it will look like a disjointed mess and most likely give you a headache. I’m not even sure why posting images in the post are of any value. THEY DO NOT LOOK LIKE THIS WHEN YOU USE THE GLASSES. What you should do is go to the back cover and use one of the two pairs of supplied 3-D glasses, then open the book.
On the first couple of panels, you’ll see Jim as he’s waking up from bed. He lives near the coast with an idyllic lighthouse that’s just outside of his quaint home. A dragonfly has landed on his head and he’s wearing what looks like a spaceman suit. The suit is padded, quite thick and if it weren’t in the shape of an ‘X’ on his chest he’d resemble the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
It’s when Jim leaves his house, through a mirror on the wall; that the 3-D magic takes off. He wades a couple of steps into a body of water and heads towards a massive mountain. The huge trees have scales that mirror a 50-story snake. As he walks towards the mountain things get darker, actual snakes appear, baboons the size of cars come down from the trees, Aztec-looking temples are explored, and more. There’s a buoy he has to walk past that’s on a dried-up lake bed. Jim is trying to get to a bright light that’s just beyond a small shack. He knows that he has to enter that shack, but what will he find when he goes in?
Jim Curious and the Jungle Journey is a wordless book, and by definition depends entirely on its images. If you’re new to wordless books that do not mean that they’re devoid of emotion, action, development, or story. The climax in Jungle Journey is a great example of that is the fact that it happens six pages before the end of the book. The ending is also very trippy and would be at home if Pink Floyd were played as you were reading it. In addition to a trippy ending, it’s also fabulous, makes you question things, and begs you to re-read the book again just to see if you missed something.
I was incorrect in my original ‘gimmick’ label with Jim Curious and the Jungle Journey. In hindsight, I would refer to the 3-D aspect as more of a feature that requires those 3-D glasses in order to enjoy it. This is a book that requires a moment to fully appreciate it, but when you do it’s akin to a light going off and that “A-HA” moment when you understand something wasn’t immediately evident.
Jim Curious and the Jungle Journey is by Matthias Picard and on Abrams Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Abrams Books.
Illustrated books have the capacity to teach us so much. Those non-fiction illustrated books, when done well, can introduce real-life figures or events to young audiences in a way that makes them want to learn more. The People’s Painter, How Ben Shahn Fought For Justice With Art by Cynthia Levinson with pictures by Evan Turk is like that. I was familiar with Turk’s work from his great book You Are Home. The style in The People’s Painter is different because it’s in the style of Ben Shahn. For us, and possibly many young readers, Shahn is an artist whose work they won’t know. He had an amazing life, as a young child railing against Czar Nicholas II’s soldiers, escaping to America in 1906 and creating illustrations that documented workers and the poor.
I was working at Walt Disney World when they were phasing out hand-drawn animation. The word started out as a rumor when The Little Mermaid was released and graduated to a poorly kept secret when The Lion King hit. Around that time Toy Story came out and ushered in an entirely new look for animated films. The Mitchells Vs. The Machines is a movie that is as big of a leap forward in animation as that one. It’s original, timely, has a story that will appeal to anyone, and a look that will dazzle the senses. The Art of The Mitchells Vs. The Machines is an oversized book that breaks down the inspiration, production, and artwork for the key elements from the film.
Statement or impact books are those literary things that draw you into it even if you’re not at all interested on the subject. They can have a cover so beautiful or alluring that you simply must open it. Alternately, the book could be so large or unique that you’re curious about its content. The Dragon Ark, Join The Quest To Save The Rarest Dragon On Earth is an oversized book that works on both levels. The book is huge and its size alone will make people want to see it. The illustrations on the front cover are also incredibly detailed. It features nine dragons flying near an island while a Chinese Junk is sailing below them. There are subtle glossy gold lines that make aspects of the dragons, trees, or boat further pop off of the page.
We’ve been fans of the Abrams Block Books since AlphaBlock came out and taught our then three-and-a-half-year-old his letters. Internally, I’m going whaaa, it’s really been eight years? That comes for both the age of our oldest son and how long it’s been since we received AlphaBlock. That book series evolved into dinosaurs, numbers, building, Disney, Marvel, and more. With LoveBlock the series from Christopher Franceschelli with art by Peskimo has changed again, albeit in a very subtle way.
Parents of a certain age will remember going to Spencer’s. It was the cool store where you could find those pop-culture items, Greg Brady beads, and blacklight posters. Spencer’s is still around, we have one at our local mall, but the teens we know don’t have as magical an impression as we did with it back in the day. To an extent, Magical Creatures and Mythical Beasts is a book that channels aspects of that black light magic. It’s an immersive seek-and-find illustrated book that looks at worldwide mythology, putting them on display using the UV flashlight it comes with.
First Names, Science Comics and Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales are the publishing equivalent of a slightly older brother by another mother. Science Comics, and their sibling, History Comics are graphic novels that are published by:01 First Second. Both of those series do an excellent job at presenting non-fiction topics or events in a graphic novel format. Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales are graphic novels thattake a more humorous, but still non-fiction look at people or events. The First Names book series have hundreds of illustrations that would be at home in a graphic novel, but frame them around text that helps complete the story. First Names Ferdinand Magellan is a detailed look at his life, discovery, and the events surrounding all of them that shaped how we navigate the planet.
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