Hello hello. I am back. Thanks so much for all your lovely comments. When I get my pictures back from the photographer I’ll be sure to share. Now here’s a book that came all the way from New Zealand…

Loosely based on the The Three Billy Goat’s Gruff story, this one focuses on three greedy fisherman brothers who fish out all the fish in the Bay. They move to another bay but a protective whale tries to stop them. They wind up hurting the whale to get him to go away and they continue fishing out everything. Finally the townspeople warn the brothers to quit or their boats will be sunk. They decide to ignore them and stay in the bay and their boats get sunk and the whale kills(!) the brothers. That’s a quick synopsis but it’s accompanied by spectacular illustrations. I can’t even tell how they are made. Part seems to be painted, other stuff is collaged using photos and some of it seems to have some neat digital(?) effects on it- blurred backgrounds or intricate repeated textures. They are so interesting to look at with so much going on in every spread. There are even small word bubbles coming from fish making comments about recycling. There are also fun die-cuts throughout the story that give you peeks to the next page. This book got sent to me all the way from New Zealand by the author/illustrator Ben Galbraith. Get this book here. Check out more of his work here. He also sells fancy archival prints of illustrations from his site that would be adorable in a kid’s room. Thanks Ben!

© Julia Rothman 2007