Orpington Library Chatterbooks Group

Higher Ground
Higher ground is an extremely interesting book, with very little use of colour. It has an ending that I found bittersweet.

Sofia

Freedom Braids
This book talks about slaves from Africa, and how their braids and hairstyles helps them find a way to freedom, this helps them to find freedom and this book makes you think about the history of slavery.

Allegra

Beanie The Bansheenie
The cover of the book has patterns on it that also appear in the book on some pages. The shape in the middle that Beanie was in was a bit like the eye that he was formed in. Each double-spread page is only using one main colour theme (mainly green or pink). The text is never in the middle of the page. It is always put aside of the illustrations. I think the illustrations describe the text well because they don't look like they would exist in reality. Also the picture of Beanie that uses two pages is in the middle of the book so that shows that Beanie plays a very important in this story.

Carlotta

Wildful
The technique of the drawing was pencil lines because most of it was black, grey and brown but there was some bits in the book ( like some of the flowers ) that were in brighter colours. There wasn't much text in the book but where it was used it related well to the illustrations because the author only used the text when it was really needed. The shape of the book was a landscape rectangle. I think it was in that shape so that there could be more pictures on one page. On the cover, some flowers are highlighted in purple and there is a badger poking its head out of a hole in a tree. There is also a squirrel running along near the top of the book. The font in Wildful looked a bit like a child's handwriting so Poppy probably wrote it. I think Poppy and her mum ( and maybe the boy as well ) were Asian. I think the author only chose people of that ethnicity because maybe he was thinking of him or his family when they were that age. Also at the end of the book there was a few pages of the dawn chorus and since there is lots of different types of birds, the author drew lots of squiggles and wiggles around the page to show the type of noise that a bird makes. The impact of the book on me was that I felt a bit sorry for Poppy because in the book it said that her nanny had died recently and I think Poppy's nanny liked going outside a lot so now Poppy's mum doesn't want to go outside anymore because that's what her mum liked doing. The part I liked the most was the dawn chorus at the end because at that moment it is the first time Poppy's mum goes in the wilderness since her mum died. I also recognised some of the squiggles as I went to a dawn chorus walk in the woods myself and the song thrush had different types of squiggles for the different sounds in its song just like in this book.

Carlotta

The Paper Bridge
The Paper bridge (review by Saatvik Goeta) The phenomenal story is about a young girl who is gifted with the skill of extraordinary cutting and folding. It all started when neighbouring country's windmill started blowing towards them. Since the villagers weren't used to wind they started getting pretty blown around. Then a little girl called Anya came up with the idea to make a paper bridge that the crane could tie to the other side. After this feat Anya changed the unexpected wind forever. It was the end of the wind but the start of a promising friendship between two talented countries one in paper and one in cardboard. Together they made the bridge stronger and healthier and thicker. For we all know that friendship is the strongest material!

Saatvik