Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Books Do Not Have Wings
Illustrator: Rogerio Coelho
Picture Book
For ages 5 to 7
Sleeping Bear Press, 2016 ISBN: 978-1585369645
When you pick up a book what do you see? You see something that has a cover, a spine, and pages. You know that the book has a writer and perhaps an illustrator as well, and that it has readers “like you.” Perhaps you think that this is ‘just’ a book, but you would be wrong. There is nothing ‘just’ about a book, because a book “can do anything / that you want it to do.”
Though a book technically does not have wings and does not have an engine or other remarkable moving parts, it still is a marvelous “work of art” that “plumps up your thinker / and fills up your heart.” It is more than a cover, a spine, and pages. It is “more than a book.”
Through its words a book can become a ship that takes you on a grand adventure with pirates. It can dip under the ocean waves and we can take a journey in a submarine, exploring fascinating undersea worlds that are full of extraordinary sea creatures.
With a book for company we can watch a witch stirring her brew, and gaze upon a dragon that is resting on a cloud deep in slumber. We can marvel as flocks of fairies dance around the leaves of trees in a forest.
Perhaps the most amazing thing of all about a book is the fact that if you have the wish to explore the book with an open heart and mind, and have eyes that are eager to discover what comes next, a book can be just about anything,
In the glorious picture book a lyrical rhyming text is paired with rich and magical illustrations to take readers on a journey that shows them that books are extraordinary things. They should not be taken for granted, nor should we ever think that they are ‘just’ a book. Once we open them up and start to read, the stories and narratives in books can take us into marvelous worlds that are ruled by the imagination, or knowledge, or both.
