When Max meets Bird, Max thinks he'd like to be friends with Bird. He would also like to chase Bird and maybe eat him as a tasty snack.
Ed Vere is an award-winning and New York Times bestselling writer
and illustrator of picture books, including How To Be a Lion -
winner of Oscar's Book Prize - and Max the Brave which was named
one of The Sunday Times's '100 Modern Children's Classics'.
He studied fine art at Camberwell College of Art and has been
writing and illustrating children's books since 1999. Ed has worked
with CLPE to co-create the Power of Pictures scheme which
encourages visual literacy in primary school education and has
received major funding from the Arts Council. He is also a painter,
working from his studio in east London.
Ed Vere has a unique style of artwork for his picture books. The
colours are vibrant, the characters are distinctive, the style is a
little bit scrappy, in a very charming way. We are big fans in our
house so we sat down eagerly to read the latest offering. Here we
have Max, a sweet black cat with enormous eyes who meets and
befriends a bird. Well, initially his plan is that they play chase
and then Max will eat up Bird for a tasty snack but Bird has
another idea...
I love how lively Ed Vere's books are. They are often use very
simple words, sometimes without sentences, but in this instance
there's more text. It is all very easily understood, however, by
toddlers and older children alike. The story starts with the funny
premise of a cat and a bird wanting to be friends, and with an
agreement between the two that first Max will try to help Bird
learn to fly, and then after that they can think about the whole
chasing and tasty snack thing! When it comes down to it, however,
Max finds that he has no idea how to teach Bird to fly.
They decide to visit the library (much to this Librarian's delight)
and there they take out lots of helpful books that they spend a
very long time reading together. Then they put in a great deal of
effort in actually trying to fly. It's all they can think about all
day long, and so they find it's all they dream about during the
night too! In the end they ask a pigeon for some tips. He, rather
unhelpfully, tells them they should just stick out their wings and
flap, and then he does lots of showing off flying! After a long
time Bird does in fact manage to fly, and of course then he tells
Max that since a deal is a deal he'd better eat him up, which means
Max goes away to do a lot of thinking about what he wants to
do...
I won't reveal the ending, but it's safe for bedtime reading! I
love how wonderfully expressive two such simply drawn characters
can be. There's a great deal of movement and energy through the
book, and both Max and Bird say everything, really, with their huge
eyes. All of the illustrations are engaging and sweet and funny,
though I especially like the picture of Max and Bird in a large
checked armchair, reading a book titled 'How to Fly'. I also like
the showing off pigeon page. Silly old pigeon! Each page has a
bright background, and the pictures have various layouts from full
two page spreads to smaller, panel pictures.
You can have a good chat about cats, and what it's like to find a
dismembered animal on the floor, if that's the sort of thing that
rocks your toddler's boat. Or you can just enjoy a sweet story
about how a friendship grows and develops. I like it as a
demonstration of the rewards from trying hard...always a good
lesson to instil I think. Though I hope my little boy doesn't now
think that if he just flaps hard enough he'll be able to fly too!
Lovely for bedtimes, or any time really.
*The Bookbag*
Ed Vere's ever-delightful Max the kitten returns for another
adventure [...] shot through with Vere's trademark irreverent wit,
which will keep adult readers amused through multiple readings
*The Guardian*
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