In Focus: 101 Close Ups, Cross-Sections and Cutaways by Libby Walden
| In Focus: 101 Close Ups, Cross-Sections and Cutaways by Libby Walden | |
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| Category: Children's Non-Fiction | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: A book that doesn't have the graphic element it attests to, but that shows a lot of insider knowledge for the young audience. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 26 | Date: July 2016 |
| Publisher: 360 Degrees | |
| ISBN: 9781848575059 | |
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Only recently I've had reason to applaud a children's non-fiction book for concentrating on showing its audience what they have no hope to see – in that case, the underground and underwater worlds, from the shallowest plant roots to the deepest oceanic explorations and everything in between. Other unseen worlds are all around us, however – they're what goes on on the inside of things – inside a pocket watch (remember them?), inside a yurt, a space shuttle, a volcano, a toilet… This pleasant square block of book not only gives us the outside image and a caption, but the full story of the innards, meaning the young reader is certainly going where they've never been before…
OK, this is where we have to put our hands up in admission – we're lying to you. This book is not 26 pages. Well, it is – but then again, it isn't. The fact is that each of those pages actually folds out, meaning that if you use the full spread you have a whopping 36 inches of book splayed over the floor. You certainly get double the information you would assume to get here – on every page you get well crafted, painted illustrations of all the buildings, monuments, animals and objects surveyed, then flip open the full spread to see the cutaway and sectional diagrams on the inner, extended page.
Sometimes things aren't where you expect them to be on the inside of the book – the tuna can is not even on the correct page, if you ask me, and the sunflower plant innards are very awkward to learn about, and you can't really do a before-and-after, such as with those children's books where you lift up a part-painted clear laminated sheet to see a progression. Sometimes too the writing is a little awkward – it's not easy to fit into the rhythm of the book; do you peruse it object by object, or full page of subject by full page?
But on the whole the concept can work, and it's a mighty fine one as well. Who even among us thought about the pufferfish's flexible spine allowing it to inflate – or that it took a full 5-6 hours to get back to normal? Who'd heard of a cashew apple? Quiz setters will be appeased by the number of moving parts in a piano, the seats in the main Sydney Opera House hall, and more.
Where the book didn't lift me in surprise was the artwork – by proclaiming the difference for every subject, and having a new artist for every double/four-page spread, the results are surprisingly similar. While effort has been done to make every page impactful, only the famous buildings, with their Tintinesque line, stand out – the subdued pastels of the animals have the same feel as the household objects. That's a minor point, however – I think the book doesn't suffer through having a more uniform, coherent look. If the coherence had reached as far as fully paralleling the outsides and insides, I would have rated this book very highly indeed. As it is it's a clever look at the cleverness of both our built and our natural worlds.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy. We're going to shelve it next to In Focus: Cities by Libby Walden.
That book I mentioned above? It's Under Earth, Under Water by Aleksandra Mizielinski, Daniel Mizielinski and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator).
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You can read more book reviews or buy In Focus: 101 Close Ups, Cross-Sections and Cutaways by Libby Walden at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy In Focus: 101 Close Ups, Cross-Sections and Cutaways by Libby Walden at Amazon.com.
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