CRUMBLE, P. Animal LOLZ Scholastic, 2014 80pp $12.99 ISBN 9781743624210
This promising hardback book of close-up animal photos with cute captions, has arrived on my reviewer’s desk as a thirty-page soft back sampler marked ‘uncorrected proof’. So I cannot, as a reviewer, vouch for the final quality of the photo reproductions, the paper, or the success of design and binding.
The captions are witty interpretations, mostly, of what these animals, caught in sometimes unusual poses, might be thinking. For instance, the joey looking into its mother’s pouch calls out, ‘Mum, I can’t find my soccer ball anywhere!’ The concept for the book is derived from the enormously successful Blue Day Book by Bradley Trevor Grieve, which is also a series of animal photos with funny and uplifting captions and if this reprise of his project captures a market only a fraction of the size his did by targeting primary age children, then it promises to be a highly successful venture. As it stands, though, I cannot vouch for the final product, except to say that this sampler is not a bad start. 3 to 100 years old.
reviewed by Kevin Brophy