Anybody got any red paint?

Hello everyone.  Little late getting this up this morning.  First order of business is to tell you the book and author from yesterday's quote:

                          The book was "A Day No Pigs Would Die: by Robert Newton Peck

Today's quote is:  "Most motorcars are conglomerations (this is a long word for bundles) of steel and wire and rubber and plastic, and electricity and oil and gasoline and water and the toffee papers you pushed down the crack in the back seat last Sunday."  (now that is a mouthful for sure :) )


Today's fractured fairytale is:

Title: Wait! No Paint!

Author and Illustrator:  Joseph Foster

Ages: 4-8

Little peek inside:

You can get the full picture (s) (pun intended) when you watch the video of the book from YouTube as my introduction to the book.  Oh brother, I crack myself up sometimes....groan.  Loved the expressions and wit of the illustrations.  They brought the text to life and had you laughing your head off at all the little piggies antics and reactions to what was happening to them throughout their story.

What is the storyline?

The three little pigs are busy doing what the three little pigs always do....building their houses ... and the first little guy gets soaked with a tsunami of spilled juice which causes his straw abode to collapse right in front of him....oh my!! The big bad wolf enters the scene and gets his nose slammed into the door of the second little pig's house causing his nose to need some corrective surgery because oh my....how his nose shape has altered.  Who is doing all these interventions into a perfectly happy and familiar story?  Who is the driving force behind these events and whose voice is that?  Well the reader comes to find out that it is the illustrator of the book who is injecting himself into their pages .  The piggies are not amused. And then low and behold, right in the middle of the story, guess what?  The illustrator runs out of red paint....oh my!  The poor little piggies are drained of colour, pasty white in fact and then the designer has no choice but to experiment with other colours for them. He makes a creative choice and paints them green. We all know from listening to Kermit the frog how that turned out with his famous song, "It's Not Easy Being Green" don't we?  Out of red paint means out of fire that the piggies need at the end of the story because how can you build a hot, steaming, menacing fire without the coveted colour red to fend off that crazy wolf who is about to climb down your chimney and gobble you up?  Your child will love the quirky twist and the unpredictability of the story's hilarious ending.  I laughed right out loud.  This is a fabulous book.  Both young and old will get such a kick out of it I promise you!  I highly, highly recommend it.

About the author/ illustrator:

Bruce Whatley  is one of Australia's most highly regarded and talented authors and illustrators for children, both here and internationally. Bruce started his working life in advertising as an art director and illustrator and since then he has created over 60 picture books.  Many of his books have won awards both in Australia and overseas, including The Ugliest Dog in the World, Looking for Crabs, Tails from Grandad’s Attic andDetective Donut and the Wild Goose Chase. 

Bruce has co-written a number of award-winning books with his wife Rosie Smith (Whatley’s Quest, Detective Donut and the Wild Goose Chase and Little White Dogs Can’t Jump) and his son Ben Smith Whatley (Zoobots).

In 2002 Bruce paired with author Jackie French and illustrated Diary of a Wombat – an iconic picture book that has become an international best-seller with foreign sales to nine territories.  Diary of Wombat was the start of an extraordinary artistic collaboration that sparked the publication of Pete the Sheep, Josephine Wants to Dance, Shaggy Gully Times, Baby Wombat’s Week, Christmas Wombat and Wombat Goes to School. Plus two delightful books about Queen Victoria, being Queen Victoria’s Underpants and Queen Victoria’s Christmas.

 One of the most remarkable aspects of Bruce’s talent is the breadth of his artistic ability, which includes an appealing cartoon style to realistic representations using mediums ranging from coloured pencils, watercolour, acrylic and oils, and more recently, 3D digital software. 

And accompanying that talent is an intellectual depth and curiosity that sees Bruce taking on large and complex projects, such as The Beach They Called Gallipoli, which is being co-created with Jackie French and will be published in 2014 to coincide with the centenary of WW1.

In 2008 Bruce completed his PhD titled Left Hand Right Hand: implications of ambidextrous image making. In his thesis Bruce looked at the image making of the non-dominant hand, making the fascinating discovery that in most people the ability to draw lies in the use of the ‘other’ hand.

          For an interview from Bruce go to: www.harpercollins.com.au and click on authors.

Book review rating:  9  (close to perfection!)

Read on and read always.  Have an amazing day everyone.