'The best books, reviewed with insight and charm, but without compromise.'
- author Jackie French

Friday 4 September 2009

Review: A Lot of Things

Title: A Lot of Things

Author: Ingrid Jonach

Illustrator: Pauline Jonach

Publisher: here publications

Format: Softcover

Language: English

ISBN: 0 9757741 0 7

For ages: 2-6

Type: Picture Book

About: Does your Dad hoard a lot of things? Does he hoard, stash, squirrel, gather and amass?

In this delightful book by Australian author Ingrid Jonach, somebody's Dad sure does cram the stuff away. Every room of the house, from tippety top to basement, is stuffed with bits and bobs, thingamajigs and watchamacallits!

Using delightful, bouncing rhyme and a penchant for tongue-twisting words that kids adore, Jonach gives us one-liner pages interspersed with busy, bustling, lines of rhyme, cavorting across the tongue and into the ears of avid little listeners.

Not only does this lovely book work beautifully on a verbal level, its busy-bee pictures will entrance little eyes, boggling at the collection of junk strewn from here to over there.

Like the books of Dr Seuss, reading rhyme is a greatly pleasurable thing - it gives pace and colour to any story, but it's also hard to do well.

In A Lot of Things, Jonach's clever prose works well indeed, and married with Pauline Jonach's colourful illustrations, this lovely book is sure to receive a repeat reading workout in many a book-loving household.

Read a KBR interview on Ingrid here or learn more on her website - www.ingridjonach.com.