LIBROS INFANTILES

De un largo artículo publicado en Independent.co.uk de hoy, pego la sección correspondiente a libros infantiles:
Children's books By Nicholas Tucker

The Orchard Book of Nursery Rhymes For Your Baby (Orchard, £12.99) is the latest anthology of these incomparable ditties. Benignly illustrated by Penny Dann, even the old woman who lived in a shoe now comes over as a reformed character, hugging and kissing her children with no whip in sight. A little more angst creeps into Hush, Baby, Hush! (Frances Lincoln, £12.99), a collection of lullabies illustrated by Pam Smy and chosen by Kathy Henderson from all over the world. Printed in English and in their original language, with their tunes also included, they show the way that mothers everywhere have always entreated and just occasionally threatened babies who will not go to sleep. Much smaller, the Tinga Tinga Little Library (Puffin, £4.99) is made up from four tough, tiny board books in a single case, each one taken from traditional African animal stories.

Moving on to picture books, Louise Yates's Dog Loves Books (Jonathan Cape, £10.99) was deservedly short-listed for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. Her story of a book-selling dog better at imagining than shifting his stock is a delight. So too is Viviane Schwarz's extraordinary There are No Cats in this Book (Walker, £10.99). However hard they try to escape, her cats only manage to leave these pages for a short while before storming back with even more friends.

Also more fun than you might predict, In the Beginning (Walker, £12.99) consists of choice stories from the Old Testament. Adapted into clear, simple prose by David Walser and illustrated by Jan Pienkowski with high good humour, this feast of a picture book starts with the creation and finishes with Jonah. Also set in foreign parts, Jane Ray's Ahmed and the Feather Girl (Frances Lincoln, £11.99) must be one of the most beautiful picture books of the year. Its story of how orphan Ahmed discovers a golden egg which hatches into a little girl deserves to become a classic.

Monsters and vampires are currently everywhere in children's fiction, so young readers might as well know something about their origins. Pop-Up Frankenstein (Walker, £12.99) retells Mary Shelley's melancholy classic, complete with the funeral pyre on which the monster ends his life leaping up from the final page. Told in graphic novel style plus some ingenious paper architecture, this is a book for everyone. For a lighter touch, Ross Collins's Dear Vampa (Hachette, £10.99) artfully turns everything round by featuring a family of long-suffering vampires driven to move house by some noisy new neighbours who are not quite what they seem.

Karin Fernald's The Dumpy Princess (Frances Lincoln, £9.99) tells the story of the young Queen Victoria through her troubled childhood to the moment she took the crown. Cheerfully illustrated by Sophie Foster, this is child-centred history at its most approachable. But for laugh-aloud humour, look no further than Andy Stanton's Mr Gum and the Secret Hideout (Egmont, £5.99). This is an author who is consistently funny, not just on every page but sometimes on every line. He is well matched by David Tazzyman's witty line drawings.

Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth (Puffin, £10.99) is another sure-fire hit, as is the late and much missed Eva Ibbotson's last novel, The Ogre of Oglefort (Macmillan, £9.99). Written when she was over 80, it still radiates youthful energy. For a nice long read plus plenty of intriguing pen and ink drawings, go to Alan Snow's Worse Things Happen at Sea! (Oxford, £12.99). Sumptuously produced, this breezy story is constantly entertaining.

Penny Dolan's A Boy Called M.O.U.S.E. (Bloomsbury, £10.99) is a Dickensian tale where the evil of the villains is only equaled in volume by the generosity of the various benefactors young Mouse meets after running away from an appalling 19th-century boarding school. His final refuge, a crumbling London theatre, is vividly brought to life in a narrative that never flags.

Jasper Fforde's The Last Dragonslayer (Hodder, £12) is also highly recommended. Very funny, with characters called William of Anorak and flying carpets that break down with rug fatigue, it is set in an imaginary time and place when magic is falling out of fashion.

Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Strange struggles to keep her arrogant but fading band of wizards in work; there is also a political crisis looming which is rather more serious.

Serious too, but this time not seeking to be funny, Jenny Downham's You Against Me (David Fickling, £12.99) is a searing story of two families torn apart by a rape charge. It also provides a moving account of first love. While its main topic may not seem too much in the Christmas spirit, its final resolution and the hope it brings along with it most definitely are.
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