6 Picture Books about Transformation
New year, new you, etc.
Deep dives on great picture books are here.
We recommend picture books here.
Read craft posts here.
The Looking at Picture Books Shop is here.
We decided to list some books about changing, it being the new year, sort of. The feeling seemed timely. SO timely that our next deep dive post will be on a book that is glaringly absent on this list — Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. So buckle up for that one, coming soon. Next week.
Anyway, here’s six picture books about transformation, including a stunningly designed object with wildly expensive production values, a book with a one-eyed knife-wielding cat, and a story by the picture book author who’s most influenced Mac’s work.
The Wonderful Egg by Dahlov Ipcar
Gosh these books are pretty. I’m so glad they’re getting published and printed so well, they really are amazing pieces of bookmaking. Ipcar was a multifacted artist who tackled a lot of different mediums and disciplines, but her picture book work is done with such deep knowledge of printing techniques and color separation and graphic design.
The hook here is great, too. It introduces us to dinosaur times generally, and then to the titular egg, but the question of the book is: What species is in there?
It then goes on to speculate and teach about the potential dinosaurs that might be in there.
It does this with a full range of dinosaurs, and by the end you’ve covered the hits but still haven’t found out what’s in the egg.
And then a nice twist:
After the story concludes, there’s two pages of extra dinosaur information. Mac has been pretty open about his disdain for back-matter, but man, when it looks this good maybe it’s not so bad.
—JON