Picture Book Pause
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picturebookpause.bsky.social
Picture Book Pause
@picturebookpause.bsky.social
27 followers 140 following 19 posts
Inserting moments of joy in your doomscroll via the mighty artform of the picture book, using examples on our bookshelf in Aotearoa New Zealand. (Profile pic is a Brian Wildsmith owl.) Always check the alt-text.
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xtotl.bsky.social
Pūkeko Who-keko is in The Listener’s ‘50 Best Books for Children’ for 2025! If you or someone small you know likes the sound of ‘sassy assemblage of outrageously rhyming constructs will have you cracking up’ - it might make a good Christmas present, just saying quietly…
December 3, 2025 at 8:13 PM
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shannonhale.bsky.social
Hi again! It's me with an another installment of the last book I ever thought would get banned--my picture book about a unicorn and kitty who are pals. A quick look at what this school district bizarrely found objectionable. 1/
frankstrong.bsky.social Frank Strong @frankstrong.bsky.social · 27d
You'll never guess what book got the Carroll ISD school library advisory committee to say "genitals" a dozen times in 20 minutes. @txfreedomread.bsky.social will have more on this story soon, but for now, you have to hear this audio. open.substack.com/pub/franklin...
Please don’t say “genitals” one more time, Carroll ISD SLAC.
Listen to the audio of the committee that decided to ban Pretty Perfect Kitty Corn from Carroll ISD. If you dare.
open.substack.com
December 2, 2025 at 11:14 PM
picturebookpause.bsky.social
Aotearoa - text by Manu Te Awa, illustrations by Brian Gunson. This edition published by Huia (2005); originally published by Ministry of Education as "Tōku Whenua"
#TeWikiOTeReoMāori #ToitūTeReo
Book cover entitled "Aotearoa" showing three ants in hard hats puzzling over some plans, facing jumbled alphabet blocks: ro Ao a a te
September 19, 2025 at 8:11 AM
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madhmstr.bsky.social
#WorldKidLitMonth : Bilingual Picture Book

#pukapuka

#KidLit

aotearoaworldofchildrensbooks.blogspot.com/2025/09/worl...
World Kid Lit Month: Bingo for 0-6: Bilingual Picture Book
Show Us Where You Live, Humpback = Whakaatuhia Kei Hea tō Kāinga, Paikea Written by Beryl Young .  Illustrated by Sakika Kikuchi .  Or...
aotearoaworldofchildrensbooks.blogspot.com
September 5, 2025 at 5:08 AM
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fortunasaga.com
I suspect this is the most influential splash page in the English language.
Grover from the Monster at the end of this book lamenting that you turned the page. It's a Master class on how to use speech bubbles to evoke emotions.
September 4, 2025 at 2:37 AM
picturebookpause.bsky.social
Attends Miyuki/ Patience, Miyuki (2016), written by Roxane Marie Galliez, pictures by Seng Soun Ratanavanh (Japanese-inspired Laotian-French artist)
A little girl travels by origami boat in front of a forest of conifers.
September 2, 2025 at 7:22 PM
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picturebookpause.bsky.social
Taniwha (1986) by Robyn Kahukiwa (Ngāti Porou, Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, Ngāti Konohi, Te Whānau-a-Ruataupare) 1938-2025. Winner of the LIANZA Russell Clark Award for illustration.
A boy in sweatshirt, baggy pants and gumboots lies on the grass and smiles up at his ancient friend and guide, the taniwha, in the water beside him.
August 30, 2025 at 8:15 PM
picturebookpause.bsky.social
Taniwha (1986) by Robyn Kahukiwa (Ngāti Porou, Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, Ngāti Konohi, Te Whānau-a-Ruataupare) 1938-2025. Winner of the LIANZA Russell Clark Award for illustration.
A boy in sweatshirt, baggy pants and gumboots lies on the grass and smiles up at his ancient friend and guide, the taniwha, in the water beside him.
August 30, 2025 at 8:15 PM
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picturebookpause.bsky.social
.. Case in point: "A is for Aunty" (2000) by Kamileroi artist Elaine Russell (1942-2017) about her childhood at Murrin Bridge mission. There's a brilliant rhythm continuing across all the pages: trees, river bends, hills and roads. And real-life stories that are a privilege to read.
Cover of "A is for Aunty" with a bendy river contrasting with red dirt and white-trunk trees. Not shown: at the back of the book, text explains Elaine Russell won an art competition around age 12 (approx 1953) and the prize was a trip to the Philippines. As it was govt policy to steal fair-skinned Aboriginal children, "Elaine's mother was afraid the prize was a trick and refused to allow her to go. Elaine can remember children just disappearing from the mission, never to be seen again, and she remembers her mother hiding her when government officials visited." Four neat mission houses - one blue, one pink, one peach and one yellow - with a pink-skinned lady in white in the middle of the crossroads, and Aboriginal people on the edges. "I is for Inspection Day The manager's wife visited each house on the mission to make sure our homes were clean and tidy - which they were. Our mothers scrubbed the wooden floors with a piece of sandstone, and when the floors dried the would be white. The manager's wife was amazed that a stone could clean the floors so white." Double paged spread - the same landscape-rectangular artwork is used cleverly for both A (is for Aunty) and B (is for Billycarts). [later in the book, the same artwork is used for both "joeys" and "kangaroos" - so we can marvel at J&K being right next to each other as one is a subset of the other - whereas "Aunty" & "billycarts" are a study in contrasts!] The A text explains that Aunty loved to cheer the races on with her big red bandanna - the B text explains the making of the billycarts.
August 23, 2025 at 3:45 AM
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picturebookpause.bsky.social
The images are looser than some of Francis' other work... they're soft glances at a slightly other-worldly time & place that may disappear if you focus too hard. suffolkartists.co.uk/index.cgi?ch...
"She made crowns of daisies and then she was a queen sitting on a green throne under a willow tree that waved away the heat of the sun. Her silver hair looked lovely with crowns of daisies on it. I made bracelets for her and bracelets for me and we wove grass together for little green mats." Image: Grandmother Lucy sits on her green throne, daisy chains around her wrists, head and top knot.
August 26, 2025 at 6:19 AM
picturebookpause.bsky.social
Grandmother Lucy Goes on a Picnic (1970), story by Joyce Wood; pictures by Frank Francis. Wonderful, quietly joyous and life-affirming glimpses of a happy afternoon.
Grandmother Lucy and a little girl walk in long grass, raising their arms to "little black birds like paper darts".
August 26, 2025 at 6:14 AM
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picturebookpause.bsky.social
An occasional thread about delicious food, first-up comes with lashings of butter #nzpol
The Giant Jam Sandwich (1972) - story & pictures (nice double credit!) by Brighton illustrator John Vernon Lord with verses by American writer Janet Burroway. Verse for this page in alt text.
#booksky
Caption: A truck drew up and dumped out butter/ And they spread it out with a flap and a flutter./ Spoons and spades! Slap and slam!/ And they did the same with the strawberry jam. Image: the biggest bread slice ever, topped with a farmer on a tractor & people using spades shoveling butter all over between mounds of strawberry jam.
August 25, 2025 at 12:34 AM
picturebookpause.bsky.social
An occasional thread about delicious food, first-up comes with lashings of butter #nzpol
The Giant Jam Sandwich (1972) - story & pictures (nice double credit!) by Brighton illustrator John Vernon Lord with verses by American writer Janet Burroway. Verse for this page in alt text.
#booksky
Caption: A truck drew up and dumped out butter/ And they spread it out with a flap and a flutter./ Spoons and spades! Slap and slam!/ And they did the same with the strawberry jam. Image: the biggest bread slice ever, topped with a farmer on a tractor & people using spades shoveling butter all over between mounds of strawberry jam.
August 25, 2025 at 12:34 AM
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picturebookpause.bsky.social
Welcome to picture book celebration... we're starting with the A to Z of it all!
Turning 40 next year, 4 million copies sold (so far), here is Australian Graeme Base's wildly detailed Animalia. #booksky
Front cover of Animalia, lion in pride of place, peacock pulling focus. (Base has said this book going "gangbusters" allowed him to turn his hobby into a career; it took him three years to complete.) "Great green gorillas growing grapes in a gorgeous glass greenhouse" plus gibbon in gumboots holding a guitar above a griffin gong by a Greek warrior as giraffe looks in by a garden shed to a gnome & a goblet... what have we missed? In the least surprising interviews possible, Base has said he loved puzzles & tricks in books as he was growing up.
August 22, 2025 at 11:08 PM
picturebookpause.bsky.social
Welcome to picture book celebration... we're starting with the A to Z of it all!
Turning 40 next year, 4 million copies sold (so far), here is Australian Graeme Base's wildly detailed Animalia. #booksky
Front cover of Animalia, lion in pride of place, peacock pulling focus. (Base has said this book going "gangbusters" allowed him to turn his hobby into a career; it took him three years to complete.) "Great green gorillas growing grapes in a gorgeous glass greenhouse" plus gibbon in gumboots holding a guitar above a griffin gong by a Greek warrior as giraffe looks in by a garden shed to a gnome & a goblet... what have we missed? In the least surprising interviews possible, Base has said he loved puzzles & tricks in books as he was growing up.
August 22, 2025 at 11:08 PM