100 People by Masayuki Sebe

100 People by Masayuki Sebe
Buy 100 People by Masayuki Sebe at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: Zoe Morris
Summary: With a 100 people on every page, this is a book packed with lots of bodies, but can you find the ones you're looking for?
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 24	Date: October 2013
Publisher: Gecko Press
ISBN: 978-1877579868
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If I told you this was a book in which every double page spread features exactly 100 people, and there’s no real story to go with it, you might be underwhelmed. You might wonder what the point would be. But I can tell you in one word: fun.

This is, for want of a better phrase, an activity book aimed at junior school aged children. The only slightly odd thing is that the activity is the same all the way through: can you find a group of 10 people from among the 100 on each page? It’s like the literary version of hide and seek, except you’re playing by yourself.

Each double page spread has a theme: 100 cave people, 100 runners, 100 Father Christmases and so on. You are given 10 specific ones to locate which is far from easy because the theme means they all look quite similar – it’s not like you’re looking for the one Father Christmas among a group of cave people or so on. So you have to have an eye for detail and be quite methodical in your searching. In addition to the 10 bodies you’re looking for, each page has extra, optional search criteria. The characters talk to you, asking questions like Who’s wearing a blue hat? and How many reindeer can you count? and if you want, you can search out the answers to their questions as well.

This is a surprisingly engaging book. In the most unusual way, you can spend a very long time looking at just 2 pages. I didn’t want to ‘do’ it all in one go because my eyes got tired and my brain started to hurt, so I started by doing one theme at a time, a bit like when you have a trivia book you dip in and out of. That made it much more enjoyable, and of course it lasted longer. Unlike some similar books there are no answers at the back of this one (darn!) but the nice size of the illustrations means it’s not quite as frightfully difficult as the likes of Where's The Penguin? by Sophie Schrey

This is a beautiful hardback book with wonderfully colourful pages. First published in Japan, there is a clear Oriental feel to the illustrations that make them feel a bit quirky and cartoonish to the British eye, and I loved that about them. The book is big on diversity and features (cartoon) people of different ages, races and body shapes, so it’s also great for a starting point for a conversation on valuing differences. The book is over-sized so easy for sharing with one or more children, and you can all crowd round and look together. I know a pair of young sisters who are going to have a field day with this one.

Thanks go to the publishers for supplying this book which will keep me, and them, occupied for hours on end.

If you like things that are a little bit different, you'll love our Top Ten Quirky Kids' Books

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You can read more book reviews or buy 100 People by Masayuki Sebe 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 100 People by Masayuki Sebe at Amazon.com.

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