What do we know?

We have a trailer, that's a start.



From Neil's Blog we find out :

quote:

Chu's Day, illustrated by Adam Rex, is a book for very small children. [click the link to the blog to see a picture] (Click on it to see it larger. There is a snail in the picture. Can you spot him?) Chu is over on the right and he has his back to us (you can't see him in the version on my blog - click and you will). It'll be published on January the 8th 2013. And there will be another Chu book (already written)

And I think Adam Rex is a wonderful illustrator.

Oh, and its availble to pre-order now.

Okay, got my copy today in time for a pre-school story time. Luckily, it was a small group, because they crowded around to drink in the illustrations. I love Adam Rex as an illustrator and he's done a superb job on this.

The story is a bit thin, with only a trip to the library, a trip to the diner, and a trip to the circus. Not a lot of build up, so it really depends on the story reader to ham it up. The kids responded well to the "hamming up" and, like I said, came up to me to look over the illustrations. It's definitely not a book I could use in a story time with more than 6 kids, though, so not what I would call a "crowd pleaser" but that's okay. It's best shared one on one, or with only a few kids at a time.

I tend to have this problem with Neil Gaiman and picture books - they never hit quite dead center to be used in a mixed-age story time. Either the text is too thin or too rich. When it is too thin, there's not much for me to hang my hat on - not too much to ask the kids about or to teach them new words. But still, the book is cute and fun.