A fun picture book about an adorable pig called Henry; it also serves as a delightful introduction to maps that teachers and parents will love!
David Elliot is an illustrator and author who has achieved international success. After working as a zookeeper (Edinburgh Zoo), dishwasher (the Antarctic), interior designer and art teacher, in 1998 he became a full-time illustrator. David is a graduate of the Christchurch College of Education, and earned a Fine Arts Diploma from the University of Canterbury. Dragon Tangle won the 1991 Unilever/Choysa Award and was a finalist for the 1995 Russell Clark Award. In 2000 he won the Honour Award in the picture book category in the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards for Sydney and the Sea Monster, while Sydney and the Whalebird was Highly Commended in the Best Illustration Category of the 2001 Spectrum Print Book Design Awards, and in 2003 his Pigtails the Pirate won the New Zealand Post Children's Picture Book Award, was shortlisted for the 2003 LIANZA Russell Clark Award, and was a 2003 Storylines Notable Picture Book. Mona Minim and the Smell of the Sun (written by Janet Frame) won the 2006 Children's Book Award at the Spectrum Print Book Design Awards, and Chicken Feathers (written by Joy Cowley) was a finalist in the 2009 New Zealand Post Book Awards. He also illustrated Tessa Duder's bestselling collection of Margaret Mahy's work, The Word Witch, which won an Honour Award in the 2010 NZ Post Children's Picture Book category. In 2011 he and Margaret Mahy won the New Zealand Post Children's Book of the Year award with The Moon and Farmer McPhee. He has illustrated the work of many of New Zealand's finest children's authors, including Jack Lasenby, Joy Cowley and Janet Frame. His collaboration with Pauline Cartwright on Arthur and the Dragon won him the 1991 Russell Clark Illustration Award. Internationally, he illustrated seven books in the Redwall series, and two in the Castaway series, both by author Brian Jacques. He also illustrated The Great Tree of Avalon series by TA Barron, and has done illustrations for Jeffrey Kluger, and for John Flanagan's bestselling Ranger's Apprentice series. In 2000 David was the Dunedin Teachers College Children's Writer in Residence, and in 2011 he received the inaugural Arts Foundation Mallinson Rendel Illustration Award. The interactive CD-ROM Mungo: The Only Pirate Left won the International Television Association NZ Award for Best Illustration Title. Since 2008 the Ashburton Gallery has been curating and regularly exhibiting David's work. David lives in Port Chalmers, near Dunedin, with his wife Gillian, and Molly the dog. He has two adult daughters, Mhairi and Jess. See more at www.davidelliot.org. His other illustrating credits include: 100 New Zealand Poems for Children; Another 100 New Zealand Poems for Children; Another 30 New Zealand Stories for Children and Sydney and the Whalebird, Arthur's Star and Henry's Map.
In a story that blends ideas about cooperation and orderliness with a gentle existential crisis, Elliot, best known for his illustrations of Brian Jacques's Redwall books, introduces Henry, a "very organized sort of pig." Henry takes pride in his tidy sty ("A place for everything and everything in its place," he says, quoting the 19th-century aphorism) but decries the messy state of the farm. "How could anybody ever find anything out there?" he wonders (although the farm looks pretty darn kempt in Elliot's pencil-and-watercolor illustrations). Henry decides to draw a map to sort things out and, armed with pencil and paper, makes his way across the barnyard. All the animals are excited to be included, falling in line behind the earnest cartographer, whose childlike, squiggly drawings are a comical counterpoint to his seriousness of purpose. From a hilltop overlooking the empty farm, the animals are puzzled when they look at the map ("Where did we go?"), and Henry quickly leads them back to their dwellings, to the relief of all concerned. Elliot's barnyard animals brim with personality and emotion, matching the understated humor of this charming story. Ages 4-8. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
PreS-Gr 2-Henry likes to keep things organized, so he decides to make a map of the farm. As he travels the barnyard drawing his own pigsty, the woolshed and sheep, the chicken coop, and the stables, the other animals are excited by his project and join him. Map finished, the piglet leads them proudly up the hill to compare the map to the farm itself-only to find that none of the animals are where they are supposed to be. "Where did we go?" they ask. They dash back to check each location, and when they arrive, they are relieved to find everyone in the right place. With appealing characters and gentle humor, this book will be a hit at storytime, or as an introduction to mapping lessons. Elliot's squiggly watercolor and pencil illustrations make clever use of white space, with the pictures expanding as the confusion of the story does and receding as Henry's world becomes orderly once again.-Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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