I Love Books
For ages 3+
Clever! Brilliant! Of the moment! Much needed!
By Mariajo Illustrajo (Frances Lincoln Books, 2024)
Me = massive Mariajo Ilustrajo fan… I have Flooded (winner of the Klauss Flugge Prize), then Lost (love too), and now ‘I Love Books’ is finally in my hands having waited for it as soon as I knew it was coming last year. YAY!! I knew it was going to be a winner, but of course anyone who coaches children in reading for enjoyment is going to literally jump on this, fight for the last copy of it in a bookshop!! And you know what, the UK is pretty much all out of copies of it - it’s a runaway bestseller. Published in time for all the World Book Day frenzy, I’m hardly surprised.
However, you haven’t seen me raving about it in detail until now. Why? Because away from the ‘dressing up’ adrenaline, I wanted to introduce this to my schools once everyone stopped hyperventilating worrying about WBD tokens, author visits and so on. And so we had a breathe moment this week, loving, laughing and gasping in wonder as we read ‘I Love Books’ together and explored every hidden clue, all the pauses for the drama (for it is very much like a performance piece with gusto if you do a read aloud) and magic.
What I won’t do is tell you what you’re going to discover along the way, the journey this little girl goes on, what the magic formula is for turning this hater of books into a child who thirsts for literary adventures, imaginary quests and time alone with her latest find in the public library. What I will tell you is that this little girl is a girl you probably know or have seen around, in school, on the bus, in the back seat of a car, at home, or walking down the street - the one with headphones on usually, looking at her phone, iPad or Switch. If you know someone like this, and you love reading, and you know the power of literature, then ‘I Love Books’ is going to be fascinating to them. If you know a child who absolutely loves reading already, then this book is going to show them what life feels like for children who haven’t found that one book yet that will propel their imagination into a world of stories to escape to and find yourself in, the one book that flicks a switch in their brain.
My book club children aren’t all book fanatics, some are a work in progress. We had an absolute whale of a time reading ‘I Love Books’ together. It’s an amazing read aloud, full of moments of engagement and discussion without feeling like you’re going to lose the momentum of the story if you pause. The children loved looking at the pictures, they loved the dialogue moments, which were so relatable in their content. The switch up in illustration palette between the real world and the imaginary world, where the colours and creatures were almost bursting out of the pages, was a super surprise reveal moment and I loved the gasps, oooo’s, and ahhhh’s. Hurrah especially for the surprises within the end papers - front vs back. Genius!! We probably spent an equal amount of time on the end papers as reading the book. Haha!! It’s one of those stories that you’ll keep thinking back to, and when you look at it again, you’ll notice more fun clues and fun little literary references - some the children managed to get by themselves and loved shouting out in glee! Clever! Brilliant! Of the moment! Much needed!
I loved the illustrated story path in the book, and so I took along my copy of ‘Story Path’ by Kate Baker and Madalena Matoso (Templar, 2016) and created an imagination exercise that produced some absolutely AMAZING results… I was SO PROUD of the children, they really embraced the activity and I could tell that the story was so inspirational and encouraging for a couple of them in particular.
Reviewed from self-purchased hardback 1st edition copy.
