Professor Puffendorf's Secret Potions

Front cover

Readers of this blog will recognise Korky Paul's illustrations, he has a style that sticks out a mile.  He's probably most well known for his Winnie the Witch books.  This particular title was published in 1992, reviews describe it as, a "deliciously wacky book exhibits all the best qualities of British outrageousness just this side of Monty Python". It can be bought in a special ELT edition with activities by Jane Cadwallader. I'm not in favour of adapted versions of picturebooks, I'd rather you bought the original. The original words are by Robin Tzannes, but it's the way the illustrations work upon them that makes this such a wonderful picturebook. Nothing deep, just very funny... actually it is quite deep that the professor is a woman, I like that - and as you can see from the front cover, she wears black stockings and high-heeled boots and her white lab coat has frilly bits along the bottom!  You'll see she is a very cool dude!

If you look closely at this front cover, you'll notice that there is also rodent-thing in a cage. The professor and her guinea-pig are not the only ones in this story, but the third character doesn't appear for a bit, you'll see why later. 

The endpapers in Korky Paul's books are usually drawn by children. These were illustrated by Seung Jun Lee, aged 9, from a primary school in Oxford. It's a fun idea to get kids to help illustrate your books. How proud Seung Jun Lee must be. 

Endpapers

Title page and copyright ...

Copyright and title page

Leaping across the spread is the rodent we saw on the front cover. He'll appear again in a bit! 

Opening 1

We are officially presented to our female professor and told about, and shown, her great inventions. "Unburnable toast", which she valiantly holds up to be burned. The seated participants munch away merrily at the proof. The Banana-matic and the Smell-o-phone are visible in the intricate drawings above their heads. It's a great spread and needs ot be revisited to pick up on all the visual information. 

Opening 2

Next comes her lab, where the story unfolds, another spread full of visual information, and it introduces us to her lazy, good for nothing assistant, Enzo. There's no mention of him in the verbal text, but he is there in the background, snoozing on the job. The next opening introduces us officially to Chip the guinea-pig. 

Opening 3

We are told he lives in the lab, we are shown that his cage is no prison, can you see the tube which allows him to get in and out as he pleases?  We are told he is friendly, bright and clever, and that his relationship with the professor is special.  We are shown he brought that watermelon from the title page into his cage, in fact if you turn back and check his movement lines continue from the title page.
It is only on the next opening that we are officially introduced to Enzo, "a lazy, grumbling fellow". 

Opening 4

His envy is evident in his words, "Look at the professor, just sitting at her desk, while I do all the work!" The illustrations show us that the professor is busily scribbling notes, as she looks at a multi-legged beastie under her microscope.  
The intrigue begins when we are told, and shown, that the professor is going out and leaving Enzo in charge.  She reminds him to turn off the Titanium Blender before he leaves. Enzo sits at the professor's desk with his feet up, eating her peppermints.  The visuals accompany the verbal text, using multiple panels, some framed, others that bleed to the very edges of the pages and others that sit as cameos under the verbal text. 
What does Enzo suddenly notice?  A TOP SECRET Cabinet (TOP SECRET is always written in bold capitals).  He finds the keys and the combinations and he opens the safe.  Inside there is "a colourful row of bottles filled with mysterious potions".
First he picked up "HAIR TODAY", you can imagine what this says it does! Not just thick hair, but red and curly. Enzo decides not to try it out as it might be poisonous, but then he has a "wicked idea ..."  The suspension points make us turn the page very quickly!  

Opening 8

"Try it on the guinea-pig first!"  That is wicked.  He does, and counts to five in the illustrations. More suspension points make us turn the page. Of course it worked and Chip's got a headful of frizzy orange hair! So Enzo decides to steal the potion, the illustration darkens as he does the terrible thing - he puts the bottle into his coat. 
As in any good story the same thing happens three times, The next bottle reads, "SWEET SONG", he tries it on Chip and ...

Opening 11

"It worked." The magical multi-coloured notes leave us no doubt, he can sing beautifully. The black background in the bottom right also leaves us no doubt, Enzo is up to no good... the third bottle of secret potions is still to come. This one says "BEST WISH" and Enzo imagines all the different things he could wish for:

Opening 12

He could be the boss, the mayor, the King even... but of course he decides first to test it on Chip. "Make a wish, boy ..." and "Chip swallowed the potion obediently as Enzo counted ..." 

Opening 14

In the illustrations I've shown you you can't see much of the black and white cat, but he's in most of the spreads and here he looks downright terrified!  Enzo is out of his whits, as he shakes the bars of Chip's cage, now his. "IT WORKED!" in relation to this delightful illustration is magical, does it refer to the potion working, or was it Chip's plan all along to become the professor's assistant?
Proffessor Puffendorf returns at this point, of course!  She sees the TOP SECRET cabinet open and realises immediately what has happened. "You're a very silly man" she sighs at Enzo.  But before salvaging the mess she invites Chip for tea and unburnable toast and a game of draughts!  As Chip leaves the lab, he turns off the Titanium Blender. 

This is a slightly longer picturebook, with 16 openings instead of 12.  Each spread is filled to the brim with things to read and look at and the humour is perfect for older primary kids.  Yes there is some challenging language in there, but the repetitive sequence of events will help prediction and the illustrations will help too. There's room for discussion about jobs we associate with women and loads of fun creating wild inventions along with instructions, and thinking about what we could wish for if we drank "BEST WISH"... I've no idea what Jane Cadwallader suggests you do with this picturebook, but you can buy her adapted version and activity book here.

Thanks to OUP for sending me this picturebook, I'd never have bought it for myself and it's been such fun discovering. 

BOY + BOT

I have a lovely sister-in-law who buys me picturebooks for Christmas. Lucky me.  Boy + Bot was one of these Christmas's gifts. Written by Ame Dyckman and illustrated by Dan Yaccarino.

back and front covers

The front and back covers ... literally the front and back of the boy and the robot.  Love it! The illustrations are crisp guache, and have that sort of retro feel to them.  The inside front flap of my hardback issue says, "They are alike in many ways ..." The cover is showing us they both have a front and back, stand on two legs, have two arms, two sticky-out ears, a smiley mouth, a button nose and two black eyes. How alike they are! 

Endpapers are covered in chunky images all connected in one way or another to these two friends. 

Front (and back) endpapers

The title page comes before the copyright and dedication, which I find a bit weird, breaks the flow... but the illustration is a cutie ...

Title page

... Boy at the beginning of his story, his and Bot's story.  This is how they meet.

Opening recto

The words of the story are trimmed to a minimum.  Nothing flowery or lyrical.  Almost robotic here and in many places elsewhere. The illustrations are all loosely framed in white, sometimes filling a page, other times a whole spread, other times in multiple panels across the opening. The narrative tells and shows us how they become friends and overcome a little misunderstanding. 

Opening 2

Bot uses fun robot language, "Affirmative" ... which is great for reading out loud! In true picturebook style the illustrations, here in opening 2, show us what actually happened, how they played. As we move through the book, we discover that by accident, Bot's power switch gets switched off, and the boy thinks he is sick, so he takes him home and ...

Opening 4

... looks after him! Here the words and pictures show and tell pretty much the same thing .  But we can also see that Boy likes robots - see the toy robot by his bed? It just so happens that Boy's parents open to the door to say goodnight and accidentally  turn Bot back on again. "What-is-wrong?" Bot asks the boy (great robot talk again!), who is fast asleep in bed. "Did-you-malfunction?" ... and yes you've guessed it, Bot takes the boy home ...

Opening 6

... and looks after him!  There's a lovely mirroring of actions shown in the illustrations, the sun is replaced by the moon, bright colours by darker ones. Bot feeds the boy oil and reads him an instruction manual.  Thankfully the inventor appears just as Bot was going to give Boy a new battery! "'Stop!' the inventor shouted. 'That is a boy!'" 

Opening 8

Boy says, "Bot! You are cured!" Bot says, "Boy! You-are-fixed!" and every one is happy.  The inventor takes Boy home.

Opening 9

Their two homes are so near, yet so far and so different, separated by that pine forest where they met at the beginning of the story.  At home they say good bye ... "Want-to-play-tomorrow?" asks Bot.  "Affirmative!" answers Boy!

Opening 11

Lovely spread here, full of multiple panels showing us just how they played.  Do you recognize the photo booth strip? (Do they still exist?) Our final verso shows the two friends hand in hand walking together in the pine forest, bringing us back to where the story started. 

Final verso

Love it! Great story for middle primary with space for talk around friendship. What do our friends look like? Why do we chose our friends? Does it matter if we are different? 

Where does your cat sleep?

Front cover

My cat just sleeps, by Joanne Partis is an OUP picturebook. They don't have a big collection, but this little title is a must! Why do some cats sleep all day? This particular cat sleeps all morning, all afternoon and all evening, and his owner just can't work it out. A simple but funny story, with a great twist at the end and some brilliant peritext. 

The front cover lets us know that this little cat really does just sleep, as you read the title, you have to emphasize that 'just'!  He's lying on his owner's back on the front cover and  lounging on the grass on the back cover. One sleepy cat. "I love my cat but I wish I knew why he is always so sleepy", says the little girl.

Back and front covers

The front endpapers are a delight and kids just love pointing and giggling, exclaiming at all the silly sleeping cats. Cat in a sink... cat in the cereal box... they just love it!

Front endpapers

Then the copyright and title pages, with a cool dedication.  A real bruiser of a cat - siamese and sleepy even in his photo! 

Copyright and title pages

Close up of dedication

When I showed this to some five-year olds, they weren't quite sure it was the cat in the book, but they thought it could be, and they soon began referring to him as Oscar.  The photo seemed to make the book so much more real, and those who had cats were keen to tell me all about them, especially if they were big and fat, like Oscar!
Our little girl looks fed up - this is also a good book for talking about emotions, by the way - her friends have "all got fun cats."

Opening 1

Guess what her cat does ... "My cat just sleeps."

Opening 2

We can give this bit of verbal text all the emphasis we want, but the humour lies in the illustrations.  She's genuinely surprised too! 
Then we get told that George's cat climbs trees, right to the very top of the highest trees. But ...

Opening 4

Yep, you've got it!  "My cat just sleeps." Children are beginning to pickup on this line already, they are mouthing the word "just" and copying my hand and body movements, as I try to demonstrate exasperation!  My favourite is the next sequence, Harry's cat digs up worms, big juicy pink worms.

Opening 6

But look, no matter how hard this little girl tries, and she really does, with pictures and everything, "My cat just sleeps." This time he sleeps in the flower pot.  He's quite a cat. One of the children pointed at the cat's ear, which is cut. He wondered how he had hurt it. Another child suggested we look at the photo in the front again, to see if the real Oscar has a cut ear. They peer hard and decide that, yes, it looks like his ear is a bit cut. They all agree that the illustrations must be Oscar. 
Back to the sleeping cat ...  The little girl laments that Molly's cat plays in the fish pond. 

Opening 8

We know what she's going to say next ... "My cat just sleeps."  Even though she tries to show him how to fish and everything!  
She wishes her cat was exciting and lists all the boring things he does like, "snooze... and yawn... and purr. He cuddles up on my lap, and he keeps my feet warm at night."  The illustrations are like thought bubbles showing us Oscar doing all these things. Ahhh, so in fact, "My cat does lots of things!"  We are shown a happy girl hugging a smiling cat, though he eyes are still closed! The background is a happy yellow too.  But she does wonder why he is always so sleepy. Can you guess where Oscar is going?

Opening 11

Opening 12

Hey!  Oscar dances all night long, no wonder he sleeps all day! Cool cat!  The kids loved it and went on to relate where their cats went at night, or at least were they thought they went! I have a cat, called Lui, who sleeps on my husband's feet all night, very boring. But it's possible that Vince, my other 'man' cat is a dancer, he certainly sleeps all day!  

But hey... don't stop, don't close the book.  THE BACK ENDPAPERS!

Back endpapers

More cats!  The kids squeal! And one notices that Oscar is there in his cat bed, can you see him?

Great story, perfect for sharing with kids up till about 8 years old I'd say. The pictures help you talk about cats (and pets generally), as well as the feelings we have around our animals.  The children I showed this book to told me what their animals did to make them happy, angry and sad. We shared some funny stories! It's wonderful when books provoke personal responses. 

And I almost forgot... thanks to the OUP professional development team for sending me this picturebook. 

Who conquered who?

Front cover

The conquerors by David McKee has been on my 'to blog about' list for a while.  It's one of his later books, first published in 2004 - I think he's only published one more since (Denver, 2010).  It's typical of McKee's work, a modern day parable created with crayon filled ink-line drawings, and spreads covered with figures all looking the same until you peer closely and see that each is uniquely different. It's brilliant and fits alongside his other picturebooks about war and conflict: Three Monsters, Tusk Tusk, and Six men. 

My copy is paperback and a 2011 edition... as with all good picturebooks the front and back covers are one continuous illustration, the conquerors marching into the book. 

Front and back covers

The black background of the back cover gives the smiling soldiers an almost menacing look as they follow in lines behind a smiling general. All stocky, with pin legs, yet faces as individual as any, with hooked, bulbous or ski sloping noses!

The front end papers ...

Front endpapers

...show the conquering taking place, at least this what we can presume. A red cannon ball zooms across the spread, and smoke and fire covers any view of anything in particular. 

The title page and dedication are strikingly peaceful after all the bombing ...

Copyright and title pages

The large title hangs over an illustration of the General and his family, guarded by two soldiers, smiling out at the reader. They look too kind and nice to be conquerors! 

But our story begins by telling us that indeed they are...

Opening 1

The General ruled over a large country which had a strong army and a cannon. Every now and then he'd attack another country nearby, "'It's for their own good,' he said. 'So they can be like us.'"  Like us?  What are these people like? The women are blond and the men (and boys) wear scull caps.   

Opening 2

In the next opening we see the General ordering his troops to attack, the canon is shooting and the soldiers are marching towards a town, a middle Eastern town, blocks of white buildings with the occasional dome. The town's men are baldheaded, and its no coincidence that they are all wearing similar clothes, quite different from those we have seen worn by the people ruled by the General. The smoke and fire evokes the scene we saw on the front endpapers. 

And so the General has conquered all the countries except for one very small one, and he decides he might as well conquer that one too. The people wave their troops off with white hankies, smiling from the windows in their tall white apartment blocks.  But upon arrival the General is surprised. There was no resistance, they were greeted as if guests. The following pages show the General and his soldiers gradually being won over by this small country and its friendly people. 

Opening 4

In opening 4 we see that their homes, bungalow-like houses with tiles on the roofs, are different to any we've seen so far. They wear different clothes too, the men wear hats, but not scull caps, and the women wear Muslim headscarves and long robes.  You can see the soldiers feeling unsure as the people give them lodging. In the following spreads, we are shown the soldiers eat and drink with the people, share jokes, stories and songs. They play their games and listen to their stories. They watch the people preparing their food and enjoy eating it.  Then, because there was no resistance or trouble, the soldiers have nothing to do but help the people with their chores.   At this the General gets angry and sends the soldiers home replacing them with new ones...

Opening 7

In opening 7 we see the new soldiers arriving, pristine and serious, marching together in unison towards the small country.  The other soldiers are a muddle, they are talking to each other, laughing and jolly - one looks like he is in love, his eyes are closed and he is smiling to himself. Another is arriving late, his hand on his hat as though straightening it after being off duty.  Soon the General realises he doesn't need many soldiers in this small country, so he goes back home, leaving a few soldiers to keep an eye on things. The people watch smiling as the soldiers and their General march away. 

Opening 9

... and what do the soldiers do?  Take off their uniforms and happily join the people in their daily tasks.  We can see everyone greeting them and indeed the soldiers seem very happy about the whole business!

Back at home the General gets on with being a General.  But things were different. 

Opening 11

The little country is present in the food he smelt, the games he sees his people playing and the clothes they are beginning to wear.  And if we look at the illustration we can see images that resemble those we saw in earlier spreads: games, muslim headscarves and long dresses, hats with brims and different tunics and the General is smiling as he smells the delicious food they are cooking in the kitchen. "Ah! The spoils of war." he thinks... 

Opening 12

The final spread shows the General sitting on his son's bed, in mid song.  They both look happy and content and as we read the words we smile to ourselves, for the General can only remember the songs from the little country he conquered, and so these are the songs he sings. 

Not quite finished... 

Back endpapers

Those end papers bring our narrative to a peaceful end.  The sun is shining over a land no longer at war ... a conquered land.

Can the violent ways of conquerors be countered by unorthodox means?  Is it possible to win with non-violence and kindness?  What is the nature of colonisation?  How do we see the customs of others around us? There's so much to talk about after sharing this picturebook, that its simplicity is misleading.  

Another book about being conquered and colonised is Rabbits (Marsden & Tan), which I have blogged on here. Its visual narrative is aggressive in comparison to McKee's The Conquerors, yet we are left with similar questions. 

A picturebook to make our students think, and hopefully talk about their thinking. 

Picturebook peritext: the other bits - repost

Happy New Year! My first, long over due, blog post of 2013. Based on a post first written in July 2010, it is one of a sequence of blog posts I wrote when I first started blogging. It talks about picturebook peritext, still vastly misunderstood in ELT contexts, so I am creating a newer version, adapted, but with the basic information I shared back in 2010. Over the last two years I've written about over 90 picturebooks, and I almost always talk about "those other bits" - it seems odd to be reading (re-writing) this post, knowing now that I would find it difficult to talk or write about a picturebook without mentioning the peritext. In my original post I discussed a recently discovered picturebook Mythological Monsters, by Sara Fanelli.  In this new post I look more closely at this picturebook, which, sadly, is now only available through second-hand books stores.  

Picturebook peritext: the other bits - Mythological Monsters by Sara Fanelli

Children’s publishing uses illustrators, authors, editors and book designers to ensure all the different parts of a book - front and back covers, dust jackets, endpapers, half-title and title pages, copyright and dedication pages - are brought together with the pictures and the words to produce a unified end product, the picture book.  An object in itself, one we should be taking  more seriously in our ELT classes.

The covers of a picturebook help introduce us to the main characters and setting. They set the tone of the story, using colour and shape, and even the way the title is written is important.  The title of this picturebook is being eaten by Argus! 

When sharing a picturebook with our students, we can also point out that someone was responsible for making the picture book: there may be two names or just one.  Small children ofetn show amazement when they understand that a picture is made by one person, someone who is clever enough to illustrate and write a book. I recently read an article by Martin Salisbury, who called the person who writes and illustrates 'an authorstrator'.  Some of these authorstrators design their own texts, creating their own hand-written fonts. Sarah Fanelli is an excellent example, the picturebook Mythological Monsters contains her own freehand font as well as some wonderful examples of collage illustration.  I've chosen this book to talk about 'the other bits' of a picturebook.  

Front cover

Front cover - that illustration of Argus, the monster with 100 eyes (and some of them need glasses!) is a great front cover, it's going to be a scary book!  Can you make out the arrows in white moving from left to right in the background? They are beckoning us to open the book.  

Back cover

Back cover - But if we first turn over to the back cover we will see colourful ink drawn outlines of all the monsters set against a background of fallen buildings. Do we recognise the monsters?  We can also read the reviews "A visual, eye-popping tour of the scariest Greek horrors." (The Times) - reviews can be shared with older students when first encountering a picturebook.  They can also be encouraged to write their own reviews which can be shared in a school magazine or blog or on child-made bookmarks.

Close up of first recto page

My edition is paperback and so it has a neat little page with a space for the book owner to write his name.  Here's a closeup of the illustration ... 

Endpapers - Open the book and you will see the endpapers, in hard-back editions serving the practical purpose of holding the pages to the cover.  In a paperback editions they are sometimes excluded, but not in this paperback!    In Fanelli's front endpapers we find those quirky ink drawings of monsters again, placed as though on a note book, and with spaces

for the reader to write the names of the monsters. Do we know these monsters? Do we write the names before we read or after?  

Endpapers in picturebooks come in various forms, sometimes illustrated, sometimes not. Even if an endpaper is blank, it could be so for a reason, so don't dismiss it. Illustrated endpapers almost always contain narrative clues.  Sara Fanelli's front endpapers are giving us clues to what we will find in the book, and challenging us before we've even started, to see if we know.   The back end papers are different.  She has created a kind of quiz, and her ink drawings appear alongside questions, to test how observant we have been, encouraging us to go back and see what we may have missed, or confirm what we already knew. The back left side endpaper gives us further information about the mythological creatures with a couple more comprehension questions thrown in for good measure.

Copyright / dedication page - Sara Fanelli has created a monster, though not from ancient Greece,  who wafts the copyright details in his firey breath, and a dog like creature barks out one of the dedications.  There's an Italian dedication upside down at the top of the page.  Do the children understand it?   You may want to tell them that Sara Fanelli is Italian and only came to the UK to make picture books when she was older. 

Title page - Then there's the title page with similar creatures breathing firey information, daring us to enter the book, or informing us in unFanelli like font that Walker Books and Subsidiaries London . Boston . Sydney . Auckland are the publishers. 

And all this before we've even started 'reading' the book. That's how important all those other bits of a picturebook are, and why we should never ignore them in our ELT classes.   

Mythological Monsters is perfect for a children who have had three or four years of English who will enjoy the visual and verbal jokes as well as the topic.  It's also an excellent title to use with teacher trainees, as it demonstrates how all the peritextual features can contribute to a narrative.  

Another of Fanelli's picturebooks which is suitable for use in ELT is My map book.  Maybe you've used other titles, if so send in a comment.

If you are interested in Sara Fanelli's work, she has an interesting website

Martin Salisbury 2008 The artist and the postmodern picturebook in Sipe, L. & Pantaleo, S. (Eds) Postmodern Picturebooks: play, parody and self-