And a big “thank you” to the friend who recommended today’s Perfect Picture Book! So when I found a book that includes travel and a school yard setting, I couldn’t resist. In the same year the New York Times named Beegu as one of its 10 Best Illustrated Books and in 2008 Deacon was named as one of Booktrust's 10 Best New Illustrators.Today, many of us in the US head out for the last weekend of summer before the kids start back to school. Deacon’s poignant and understated text is brilliantly served by his illustrations, which carry distant rreminders of some of the best illustrators of the last 100 years and yet still remain uniquely his own.’īeegu is Deacon's second book and was short listed for the Kate Greenaway Award in 2003. It comes as no surprise that The Sunday Times review of Beegu states, ‘Alexis Deacon may well be Burningham’s heir apparent. She stands out, literally, in a dull and grey world. The tonal quality of the images really evoke a deep sense of empathy for Beegu. Like other mutlimodal texts such as Pat Hutchins' Rosie's Walk and Eileen Browne's Handa's Surprise it is only when the images and the written text are read together that the full story emerges. One where the written text simply does not tell the whole story. The main feature of this picture book though is the images. With support from the teacher the children could identify the story structure and use it as a model for their own writing.
However, so much more could be gained from this text if it were to be used with the class as a whole as a shared read or with smaller groups as a guided read.
Therefore, it would be a suitable choice for the class library. The written text should easily be decodable by the majority of children in year 2/3. In the primary classroom it will facilitate discussion on all these issues at a number of levels for different age groups from the new pupil arriving at school and helping him/her understand routines and make friends to more complex subject matter such as comparing the themes with those in John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. The book's issues of loneliness, rejection and isolation are effectively portrayed through the delightful images, evoking a range of emotions.
It is a heartwarming story which is simply but beautifully told through the use of very few words. At the same time, she finds it difficult to make sense of the surroundings in which she finds herself. She attempts to communicate but finds it difficult to make herself understood. Publisher Red Fox 2004 (originally published in 2003 by Hutchinson)īeegu is a story about a young alien who crash lands to earth.
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