Invite your imagination with If… by Sarah Perry, which is today’s featured picture book. I was drawn to it by the cover and it definitely was not at all what I imagined, but it definitely worked wonders on my imagination!

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The Book Review

If… by Sarah Perry

Book Info

Description

Take a fantastical journey where anything can happen: leaves turn into fish, cats fly with wings, humans have tails, and dreams become visible
 
First published in 1995, Sarah Perry’s delightful picture book of “surreal possibilities” was the Getty’s first children’s title and has remained a beloved backlist classic over the course of two decades. Perry’s magical watercolors conjure up a world of limitless possibilities. Children of all ages will enjoy this romp through an inspiring, imaginative world. Reissued to celebrate a remarkable book’s 25th anniversary, this enhanced, expanded, and enlivened edition will appeal to a brand-new generation of readers.

My Thoughts

This is a sparsely worded book at less than a 100 words, if you do not include the newly added Reader’s Guide at the end of the book for this edition (which is also fascinating, by the way!). And not one complete sentence in those less than 100 words too……

But this book is all about the illustrations, and of course those short pithy ‘If...’ questions next to them that together are bound to lead to much longer discussions and exercises in out-of-the-box creativity!

Opening this book is like looking into a child’s actively imaginative mind and having it pop out at you in brilliant colors. Consider these examples from the book that range from the sweetness of mountains that are giant sleeping dogs to the total grossness (for adults at least) of mice as your hair!!

The book effortlessly takes you on a trip to the great land of imagination, to the start of the wonderful and weird conversations you can have with little ones (or even with other adults), to get yourself or anyone to bend their minds a little more, or – to use the cliched phrase – step out of the box completely! This makes it a great resource for inspiring creativity for your art projects as well as writing exercises, as well as to simply enjoy it!

Dear reader, look closely at the cover page, look at the leaves. What do you see?

In Summary

Surreal, outlandish, weird, enjoyable, surprising, beautiful, magical, unsettling, whimsical and totally, totally out-of-the-box imaginative and creative.

So yes, go ahead and invite your imagination with If… by Sarah Perry, for it is a must-have for every creative’s and every child’s bookshelf.

A Side Note

This is the second book from Getty Publications that I have read; and each one wowed with the illustrations. You can check out the other book – Don’t Let the Beasties Escape this Book – here.

Get It Here

 Book Depository || Target ||
Barnes and Noble || IndieBound

Disclaimer: Thanks to Netgalley and Getty Books for the eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

A Sort of Top Ten List

It has been a while since I did a Top Ten Tuesday list. This week’s theme for TTT over at ThatArtsyReaderGirl is top ten authors I’ve read the most books by. That is actually both tough and easy (because the authors I have read the most books by are not necessarily my top ten authors; they simply have written many more books and I have read many of those books).

So here is a cheat sheet version instead:

• Early Childhood Reads: Enid Blyton (of course, I lived on a diet of Blyton for a long while); and I can always include Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew), Franklin W. Dixon (Hardy Boys anyone), Robert Arthur Jr( The Three Investigators series).
• A Little Later: The classics were a big part of my pre-teen and teenage years and I devoured books by Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, the Bronte sisters. I also read a lot of R.K. Narayan, Mark Twain, Dickens, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Dumas, H.G.Wells, Jules Verne, H.H.Munro, O Henry, Poe, and Oscar Wilde.
• And At the Same Time As Above: Arthur Hailey, Alistair McLean, Earl Stanley Gardner, Nevil Shute all played a major role during my high school years as I dived into thrillers and crime novels and mystery; of course Arthur Conan Doyle.
• And Then Those Romances (mostly as an adult reader): And how can I forget the romance writers? I don’t want to look to see how many of their books I have read but I know for a fact it is many many! Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel, Stephanie Laurens, Lisa Kleypas, Julia Quinn, Eloisa James; and yes, Betty Neals was maybe one of the first I read when I picked up a M&B what seems like eons ago
• Last But Not the Least: Roald Dahl, Neil Gaiman, and Shel Silverstein were authors I discovered as an adult but revisit them often now.
• And these are some authors I know I would love to read more books by (have read just one or two so far): Colson Whitehead, Elizabeth Acevedo, Aravind Adiga, Erin Morgenstern, Shanti Sekaran

Would You Rather

Today’s WYR

Would you rather live in a library or a movie theater?

Here my choice is definitely the library, no doubts at all!

And Now, the End of This Post

Dear reader, any books that led you a surprising discovery recently? Or any books about inspiring people? Do let me know.

Linking up to the Ultimate Blog Challenge and feel free to join in so you can interact with other bloggers and challenge yourself to post everyday this month.

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