Big Picture Press – a pre-publication review – Ad sent for review

disclosure:  I was sent some pre-publication sheets for review, my comments, however, remain my own honest thoughts.

As you know, I love books with a passion and luckily my son seems to love them too – so I do everything I can, to keep that enthusiasm going.

I also love maps, be it my map postcard obsession or atlas’.  As a child, I spent hours looking through my Dad’s old atlas, which I still have now.  I worked in Export for over 20 years before he was born, loved travelled and learning about different cultures. I hope I can pass these passions on to my son too.

When Big Picture Press asked me if I’d like to take a look at a few new titles to be published later this year – I obviously jumped at the chance, when two of them actually tied in really nicely with my passions – double whammy!

The first title is MAPS by Aleksandra and Daniel Mizielinscy.  This is a beautifully illustrated picture atlas – so up my street! When the book is published in October 2013 it will have 112 pages of wonderful world maps, an example of the content is shown below for United States of America.

USA

Although this book will be aimed at older children (my son will be 4 in December) I actually think it has a place for younger children too.  They may not grasp the idea of the world and different countries in the same way that older children do, but because this is a pictorial atlas it’s great for extending vocabulary and conversation.

His grandparents live in Spain, he knows that that’s a long way away, he knows he has to get on a plane or a boat to visit them.  It would be great to show him the map of Europe and then one of Spain, and talk about the different things you find in each country.

EuropeI’d love him to have a book like this at his age, start getting him interested in the bigger world and then as he starts school, build on the vocabulary, geography and language differences.  It could be used with other family members to talk about their holidays and I can get my old holiday photographs out and we can find the country and see if we can spot the object.

MAPS will have an RRP of £20.00, which I think will be well worth the money, the illustrations I’ve seen are beautiful and it’s the kind of book to be treasured and can grow with your child.

The second book to catch my attention was Walk This World by Lotta Nieminen.  This is a lift the flap book that travels around the world, exploring different cultures.  Again, just the sort of book I would buy for my sony. When the book is published in October 2013 there will be 12 page spreads with 80 lift-flaps and the reader will visit 10 different countries along the way.  This illustration of France gives you an idea of what you will see in the book, the red highlighted areas are where the lift flaps will be.

FranceAgain, I love the idea of this book, a great way of introducing children to different cultures, talking about different styles of buildings and transport.  Again, it’s probably aimed at slightly older children than my son, but he was quite taken with the colourful illustrations and we spent time talking about the things we could see in each picture.  I found some old photo’s of a trip to Paris and we talked about the Eiffel Tower.

Walk this World will have an RRP of £14.99, again I think will be well worth the money, as I’ve mentioned before the illustrations are eye-catching and this is another book which can grow with your child.

I was also sent Nina’s Book of Little Things by Keith Haring which is being re-released in an updated version in September 2013.  I would say that this is aimed at children 6 and over, so my son’s definitely too young for this at the moment.

Nina's bookHowever, with my friend’s 7-year-old daughter in mind I can see the immediate appeal of this book – it’s part album, part sketch pad, part scrapbook.  A wonderful idea for children to really interact.

Nina's book 2My friend’s little girl loved the idea that she could put things in this book, draw in it and take her time to fill it.  I can see it being a hit with a lot of young girls.

Nina’s Book of Little Things will have an RRP of 14.99 and I’m reliably informed by my friend that she thinks this would be a great present and keepsake and she’d be happy to pay that price.

I’ll be eagerly awaiting the release of these books later in the year and look forward to seeing what other little gems are in the pipeline.

 

 

 

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