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Andrew McLean

When a children’s picture book first comes into the home, there is no way of telling whether it is going to be ‘the one’ – the one that will be read and reread; that will have pictures drawn about it and songs made up about it; that will be carried around and allowed to spend the night at the end of the bed. There’s no rhyme or reason to it; awards and critical acclaim don’t mean too much. The book is simply chosen, and becomes the centre of the child’s universe for a week, a month – a lifetime.

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It is the often hapless task of the reviewer to draw together observations on the aspirations and creations of up to six people into a seamless and riveting piece of critical prose. Sometimes it is just not possible, as is the case here, when all these three books have in common is that they are picture books, and will probably be found somewhere near each other in a bookshop or library.

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