This morning I whipped into Readings with a particular book purchase in mind where upon I was immediately distracted by a tonne of new craft titles (more about that later) and then I set my eyes on this. It was the cover illustration that attracted me so I opened the book to find the answers to questions such as "Do fish know who their parents are?" and "Why does the moon change shape?" Finally, someone is addressing the real questions that our children ask!!The illustrator is Amy Schimler, a mixed media and collage artist who has infact drawn the pictures for many childrens books. Amy is also a textiles designer and an illustrator for many BIG names. She is inspired by colour, pattern and texture and this divine book (called by the way, Why is the sky blue?) seems to encapsulate all of those qualities. It has brown sturdy pages which I'm sure are eco friendly and lots of flaps and sliding bits to amuse young readers. Best of all it answers those hard questions to which I often respond "Daddy knows a lot about world population statistics and he'll be home soon!"
For budding freelance artists Amy offers some lovely words of wisdom in her blog red fish circle.
