For 'True' Book Lovers
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I am not very familiar with picture books. They are not what I grew up on and am more often than not repulsed by the sort of illustrations they, well the modern ones tend to have. They are grotesque and often just insulting to a child's intelligence really. Well, "The Incredible Book Eating Boy" features illustrations which are no less conventionaly gruesome, to say the least, but blessedly not plain grotesque. It's the idea behind it, however, that gets to sparkle so! The book is 'bitten off', on the back cover. Yet the story is about anything but the carnally gluttonnous consumption of books. It is a fantastic and, simple, ingenious parody of what the world expects today from a given piece of media: that it should be understood at once without the audience actually making the effort to comprehend it. As far as fiction goes, you have people who speed through a book as if it is a race to get from cover to cover, the prime intention apparently being to accumulate as many books on the list of books they have read. As one reviewer here has mentioned, Oliver Jeffers invested time and effort into creating this volume. Any good volume is a product of much deliberation; to believe that one has read it if the reading does not even take one tenth of the time it took to craft the material is sheer simplicity in the most imbecile manner.
Granted, this moral is rather abstract for the intended child audience. Yet it should be clear at least that the story is pointing out the value of careful reading as a away to consume books. But Jeffers must have realized that his intended audience actually will comprise also of an adult who's reading the book with the child. If the grown-up understands it, then the child will hopefully one way or another be taught to treat books as not just printed pages, be it to be waded through or wantonly disposed of.
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Great story
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This is a great story with brilliant illustrations with lots of detail to be noticed on subsequent reads but these are of a different style to Oliver Jeffers other books and in my opinion not quite as good. My son has loved Lost and Found and How to Catch a Star since about 12 months of age but this book requires an older child (probably about 3+) to grasp the peculiarity of eating books, the concept of learning from books and the humour of what might happen if you were to eat too many...
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A lovely book which makes any child giggle
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This is a beautiful book with good illustrations and is actually quite an amusing story. The fact that the book has a bite mark on it makes the story sort of real and inspires the children to want to read it. Definately would recommend this book.
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Oliver Jeffers does it again!
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As far as I'm aware, this is Oliver Jeffers third childrens book.
It is a bit different from the others - it feels a little bit more grown up. The story is a bit more complex. It is still simple enough for my 2.5 year old to understand, and she would still have enjoyed it when she was younger. Infact, we've read this to our 8 month old who seems to enjoy it too as the illustrations are (as you'd expect from Oliver Jeffers) visually gorgeous.
The story is laced with humour as a boy discovers he likes to eat books, and realises he learns things when he does it. Eventually he learns that reading a book is the best way to enjoy them!
This is wonderfully written and you'll fall in love with both the story and the illustrations. Oliver Jeffers is one of those authors who manages to write books which you enjoy just as much as your child.
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Charming humour for little and big kids
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I stumbled across this book in a shop and was immediately captured by the lovely prose and cheeky hidden jokes for adults. Henry is a curious little creation of Jeffers' gorgeous illustrations and as a teacher, I know that the many facets of this text make it perfect for use in the classroom. I heard Oliver Jeffers interviewed on BBC radio last week, discussing the painstaking process of creating the book, right down to perfecting his own handwriting in the text and thinking about the impact of the illustrations. I love the idea of a delightful picture book that has been lovingly created by its author. This one will become part of my portable classroom library for sure.
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