0 G is for Gravett, Emily : Again Review

G is for Gravett, Emily

Emily Gravett
An author , an illustrator, an artist, a book binder, Winner of Kate Greenway medal twice for Wolves and Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears - Much loved at The Bubble Ink.

Books that Bubble Ink has read :
Again, Dogs, Orange Pear Apple Bear, Matilda's Cat, Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears, Blue Chameleon and Cave Baby.

Books read to the Bubbling:
All the above except Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears

Bubble Ink pick:
Again.

Bubbling Pick:
Cave Baby [Written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Emily Gravett]

Some more that we think are great:
Monkey and Me, The Odd Egg, Wolves and Wolves don't bite.

Since we already did Cave Baby, we will review Again.

The Book:
Again is written and illustrated by Emily Gravett

Available at a great price on Amazon.in here . Also check on  Flipkart here. 
Some More Emily Gravett - Genuis Gravett and at Great prices there.


The Bubble:
The book is a story of a baby dragon who gets a book to his mother requesting her to read him to sleep. The mother reads a story of Cedric, a red dragon who doesn't ever want to sleep , kidnaps princesses to make himself dinner , torments trolls and wants to do all of this AGAIN and AGAIN. Every time the story ends, the baby dragon in our story, demands it to be read "Again". The mother reads the book - this time, tweaking the story to trick the little one, saying Cedric should be sleeping at night. But, "Mom Proposes, Child Disposes" - "Again" says the baby dragon. She re-reads it, shortening it some more and eventually falls asleep herself. This angers the baby dragon that he eventually burns a hole in the book! 

The illustrations which show the expressions of the mommy and baby dragon are mind blowing. The book within this book is also illustrated very intelligently to depict what is happening in that story and in view of how the baby dragon visualizes it.

Bubble Ink's verdict:
There is so much to love about the book. The attention to detail in the illustrations, the intelligent way of incorporating a book within a book, the imagination that has gone into designing the book, the hidden messages in the illustrations to gel with the story , the furious little dragon blowing a hole in the book - reasons aplenty to love the book.

The inner story that is being read by the mother-dragon to the baby-dragon gets tweaked, shortened at every subsequent read by the drained out mom to trick the little dragon to doze off. Haven't we all done that ourselves to our book-loving children? Shortened the story, tweaked the story to convey it is bedtime and witnessed the rage of our little ones!

If you have got a book loving toddler , the one who demands a book to read again and again at bedtime, "Again" would definitely be that book.

We bought ours at the LightRoom Bookstore in Bangalore.
We give it 5-bubbles.

Bubbling's verdict:
The bubbling is a bit young to understand and appreciate the book in its entirety. But while we read the book, we adapt it to her level. So the actual story we read as is and the inner story is  usually modified / adapted to convey the message but we don't read that story aloud. 
But she gets the actual story well and she giggles says "Amma, Again!" and "Oh-Fire - Book gone!" - She loves the book no doubt, but not giving a bubbling rating on this one. 
We will come back a while later to have the bubbling read it completely.

0 M is for Matilda's Cat

Part of the A to Z challenge #atozchallenge

The Book:
Matilda's Cat is written and illustrated by Emily Gravett.

The Bubble:
The book is about the girl named Matilda and her cat. The text in the book reads that Matilda's Cat likes a host of things like playing with wool,  with boxes, with hats, while the illustrations show Matilda's cat either intimidated by those things or not caring least about them. The illustrations also show Matilda dressed up like a cat herself doing all those things herself, in an attempt to figure out what her cat likes. In every subsequent page, the previous liking is crossed out to indicate that her cat doesn't actually like it. But, why does the cat still stick around despite not liking any of those things that the narration claims or that Matilda does?

Bubble Ink's verdict:
We love the illustrations, specifically the richness of details on each spread. The page that reads Matilda's cat loves bed time stories has Matilda reading the book "Dogs" , pointing her finger such that her shadow shows up as a dog which scares the hell out of the cat.  Dogs book being read, shows up as Dog shadow to get across the message that Cats are afraid of dogs and so does Matilda's cat! What attention to detail that! 

We love Emily Gravett for her wit , her beautiful illustrations and the style that is so uniquely hers!
We bought ours at the Lightroom Bookstore in Bangalore. The name 'Emily Gravett' and a quick flip through the beautiful hand lettered text and the illustrations were enough to pick this book up.
We give it 4 bubbles.

Bubbling's verdict:
The bubbling loves the illustrations : the page with Matilda playing with wool and the funky hats are her favourites. She calls Matilda in her cat coat as Cat too :). Points to the illustrator for that!
It is a bubbling-tantalizing-three.

0 C is for Cave Baby

Part of the A to Z blogging challenge #atozchallenge

The Book:
Cave Baby written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Emily Gravett is a story of baby who lives in a cave and loves to paint and his journey with the woolly mammoth.

The Bubble:
The author-illustrator combo is just absolutely awesome. Emily Gravett makes the cave baby wearing a leafy-nappy look so adorably cute. The illustrations on every page is well detailed and lovely.

It is a story of a baby who lives in a cave with his mom and dad having pictures of tiger, hyena, hare, woolly mammoth and a big brown bear on his wall for company. Cave baby finds his cave boring since his mom and dad are busy. He finds paint and a brush and starts to paint patterns on those animals and has fun. Mum and dad are not happy seeing this and the dad threatens the baby saying
"If you don't take care, 
A mammoth's going to throw you to the big brown bear". 

The story continues on with the cave baby being taken away on a journey by the grey mammoth. Throughout the ride, the baby is dreading the big brown bear. Is the mammoth taking him to throw him to the big brown bear? Is he taking the cave baby on his dream journey? Is the ride on the mammoth a dream? Does the baby get to live his dream?
The effect of small things on the child's mind is brought out well in the book. The dad scares the baby of the big brown bear, it stays on the child's mind, he dreams of it, he dreads it all along. At the end of the story - the illustrations show how the baby no longer fears the bear - by depicting it as a small brown bear! Only Gravett and Donaldson can do that in a picture book.

Bubble Ink verdict:
We love the dreamy effect in the story. While the cave baby is riding on the mammoth, his fearful comments on seeing each animal, how dreadful he is of the big brown bear is delightful with the illustrations and the rhyming text.
"Cackle in the bracken. A hyena is laughing there.
Has he heard a joke about the big brown bear?"

One of those books which will grow with your child - Dreamy story, beautiful illustrations, rhyming text , Julia Donaldson, Emily Gravett - What more do you need for a picture book! That is a complete, sure hit package!

We give it 4 bubbles.
We borrowed our copy from Hippocampus Bangalore.
Watch the author perform the cave baby song here.
Bubbling's verdict:
The bubbling loves the story. She jumps in joy seeing the animals , but still says "Elephant" for the mammoth. Her latest favourite happens me to be little babies, so she took to the Cave Baby immediately. The time this book was the one that she wanted it to be read to her, every single day.
It is a Bubbling-Fab-Four.

0 B is for Blue Chameleon

Part of the A to Z Blogging challenge #atozchallenge

The Book:

Blue Chameleon is a book by Emily Gravett and has got lovely illustrations of Chameleons.

The Bubble:

The book is not just about illustrations of color-changing chameleon but has a story weaved in too. It starts with a Blue Chameleon feeling lonely. Through the pages of the book, this blue chameleons meets a host of things, animals, birds, reptiles and greets them with his witty, cute one-liners. The chameleon not only changes color but also poses in the style and adapts the patterns of whom/what it meets. Just while he is about to give up on seeing the grey rock, he gets to meets another chameleon and they both are multi-colored and multi patterned and dance away to glory.

The book is an absolute visual treat starting from the pink cockatoo, swirly snail, the stripy sock, smart and stylish boot, spotty ball.

Bubble Ink's verdict:

This book is an absolute delight to own. It is one of those books, which you will not be satisfied by just reading once, but would so want to own a copy of your own. 

We love the illustrations on each and every page. It is beautiful, intelligent and done with a lot of attention to detail. We love the one-liners that go with every page, like in the Sock Page with the Chameleon hanging upside down on a cloth line asking the sock "Can I hang out with you?". The smart looking chameleon stylishly saying "Howdy" to the Boot. Intelligence is seen in the pages in which the chameleon meets a fish and doesn't greet, but the illustrations shows bubbles coming out to show the chameleon in water. The impression of the chameleon even when it meets a white page is a lot of attention to detail. 

A must own in every child's library and can start at any age! The illustrations are drool-worthy and in addition can also be used to learn colors, patterns ,objects and animals. 

We give it 5 bubbles.

We bought ours at a sale.

Bubbling's verdict:

My bubbling likes the book, she . However, the book is not something she would pick up on her own to bring to be read. With just that in mind, for now, it stands as a Bubbling-tantalizing-three.