Children's books...

I started to buy children's books when my own children were young, but as they grew up I decided that it was a pity to miss so many beautiful books, and I started to buy them for myself when I happened to see a particularly beautiful one. Now I have a small collection, mostly because book space in my home is precious and I can never buy as many books as I wish...Otherwise it would be a  _big_ collection by now.
Some time ago I happened to see the Italian edition of "The rabbits" by Shaun Tan, and fell in love with this image....This ship is amazing!!

 

The story is poetic and sad, told just with a minimum number of words...  Images convey all the feelings.

I think it is a very artistic book ...And actually I realized that illustrated books are an easy way to collect beautiful works of art! It's true that one can't hang the images on walls, but as I wouldn't have the space anyway, that's not important for me!
I decided I wanted to buy also the other works by Shaun Tan (as anyway his books cost as little as a magazine on on-line bookshops) , and I ordered "The Lost Thing" and "The Red Tree".
Both have in common the fact of having just few words printed on pages that need a long observation and attention  to discover lots of  details...I guess young children love these these books, but they are really enjoyable by adults too... And actually Shaun  Tan's books belong to the kind of items that look as if they were meant for children, but are probably aimed at adults...

 

I found especially beautiful  "The Red Tree" , that is a visual masterpiece and won many awards.. It explores feelings of loneliness, grief  and hope through amazing images.

 

 Now I'm looking forward to buy "The arrival", which has no words at all...But I'm sure it won't need them.

Shaun Tan's site is at http://www.shauntan.net/ , discover his works there!