Oliver Jeffers

Celebrated (and prolific!) author/artist Oliver Jeffers explores the nature of grief in this poignant picture-book, following the story of a young girl who is filled with wonder at the world, and who shares that wonder with a beloved elder. When that elder - a father, perhaps a grandfather? - disappears from her life, the girl shuts her heart in a bottle, in order to protect it from the griefs of life. But without her heart, she finds that she has become blind to the beauty and wonder she show more once saw all around her. It takes another little wonder-filled girl, whom she encounters when she herself is a little older, to help her begin to free her heart from its self-imposed exile...

A simple but emotionally resonant text, one which captures the grieving process perfectly, is paired with beautiful artwork in The Heart and the Bottle, creating an understated but powerful picture-book experience. I particularly appreciated the message, implicit in the story, that in order to experience joy and wonder, we must also endure pain and sorrow, something the girl eventually learns through her own experiences. Jeffers has a perceptive eye for the human condition here, and I found the idea, also highlighted in the story, that we can get so out of the habit of opening our hearts, that we forget how to do so, quite powerful. The illustrations are lovely, whether they communicate the desolation the girl feels, when confronting loss (as represented by an empty chair), or the joy she experiences, when the world opens up to her again (as depicted by the rainbow-colored smorgasbord of images that flow from her head, toward the conclusion of the tale). Recommended to Jeffers fans, and to anyone looking for children's stories which explore loss and grief. show less

Henry loved books. Specifically, he loved to eat them. The more he ate the tasty tomes, the smarter he got. Until the day, that is, that the knowledge he was ingesting began to become a little mixed, and he began to feel a little ill as a result of his unusual diet. Following the advice of parents, doctors and librarians, he stopped scarfing down books, but subsequently found life a bit dull and flat. What could he do...?

READ!!! (of course!) Although I saw the ending of The Incredible Book show more Eating Boy coming from a ways off, and fully expected to find in its pages a paean to the beauty and joy of reading, I still found the process of getting to the conclusion quite enjoyable. The story here is humorous and engaging, offering an oblique exploration of how we consume books and other media amidst all the hilarity. There's something to be said for taking our time when we read, rather than rushing to read everything we can, without pausing to truly mull it over. I appreciated that Jeffers managed to work that message into his book, without resorting to any overt didactic display. The illustrations were every bit as appealing as the story, making use of textual collage elements in ways that reminded me of the artist's work for his subsequent A Child of Books. Recommended to fellow Jeffers fans, and to anyone looking for children's stories that address how we approach books and knowledge. show less

When Floyd's kite gets stuck in a tree, he throws his shoe up to dislodge it, only to find that the shoe gets stuck as well. Soon his other shoe, a cat, a ladder, and a succession of ever-larger and ever more absurd objects and creatures are stuck in the three, as Floyd chucks them at the problem. When the tree is laden with everything from a blue whale to a firetruck (complete with firefighters), his kite is finally freed, and Floyd runs off to play. After a full day, he goes to bed, show more haunted by the feeling that there is something he has forgotten...

Author/artist Oliver Jeffers delivers an absurdly hilarious madcap romp in Stuck, one in which the zany illustrations are more than a match for the narrative hi-jinks. The surreal humor here rests not just upon Floyd's unorthodox manner of confronting his problem, but also upon the speech-bubble comments of the people who are dragged into his messy solution, and stranded in the treetop. The artwork is quirky and appealing, in the inimitable Jeffers way that I find difficult to describe, and that, despite not necessarily being to my taste aesthetically, always works just right with the story, and keeps me amused. The scene in which whale, lighthouse, and ship are all sticking up from the tree won a particularly appreciative chuckle. Recommended to all Oliver Jeffers fans, and to anyone looking for picture-books with a somewhat surreal silliness. show less

Oliver Jeffers, a master of thinking outside the box, teams up with Sam Winston for this amazingly creative story about a dictionary who “had ALL the words that had ever been read, which meant she could say All the things that could EVER BE SAID.” But she didn’t tell a story like all the other books, “which is why, one day, this Dictionary decided she would Bring her words to LIFE!”

As the words on Dictionary’s pages appear, so do the characters in the Dictionary’s story, show more beginning with a hungry alligator, who, “smelling something Delicious on the D pages” heads for a donut. The donut then rolls away farther into the pages to save himself from being eaten.

And on the story goes, passing through the alphabet. The characters accumulate and have all sorts of alphabetical adventures, including getting swept up in “Tornado’s TERRIBLE Tantrum.” Eventually Alligator finds Zebra at the end of the book who bolts back to the beginning: “It was chaos!”

Dictionary has to get things back in order, which she does thanks to her friend Alphabet. Alphabet sang the Alphabet Song, and this helped everyone get back to their proper places. Dictionary, having seen the pandemonium story-telling could cause, was now happy to let other books tell their stories instead.

In an interview, Sam Winston explained: “'The idea behind the book is that you’ve got this very rigid structure,’ speaking of a typical dictionary. ‘So where some of the humor and the playfulness and the fun comes from is that this is a book doing something it shouldn’t do.’ Essentially, coming alive.”

The illustrations are a marvel, a captivating combination of photography, painting, ink handwriting, as well as typography for the dictionary definitions.

Evaluation: Kids are bound to increase their vocabularies as they make their way through this delightful action-packed story full of words. As for the definitions that run along the edges of the pages - you would think they weren't part of the story, but you would be vastly underestimating the ingenuity, inventiveness, and effort that went into this book. The definitions provided are unconventional and wonderful - think of The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce with its humorous and satirical definitions but for young people. They are both informative and endearing. Some examples:

People - “a collective word that refers to human beings. Humans were first invented a long time ago, and before humans there were many different versions that came in multiple sizes and shapes. Originally from a few locations, they are now available around the world.”

Home - “The place where you live or where you were born or where you feel you belong. Homes can be found on streets, in trees and where your heart is.”

Dream - “A word for things people see while asleep. Dreams are the brain’s way of showing you that you’re a lot more imaginative than you think. In the day, we fill our heads with sensible things, but dreams prefer to create strange images, such as glow-in-the-dark marmalade and inflatable chicken’s teeth. Some dreams happen when we are awake: Martin Luther King Jr. had a great one. We’ve been studying dreams for ages, and we still don’t really know what they are.”

Miracle “Something that is amazing or magical for which there seems to be no scientific or common-sense explanation. Often associated with finding a parking space or getting homework done.”

Moose - “a large North American deer. You might think that as the plural of mouse is mice, the plural form of moose could be any number of possibilities: mooses, meese or manymooses; it is, in fact, moose.”

It’s so hard to mention just a sampling of these marvelous definitions. Lucky owners of this book will spend delightful hours going through them. show less