A Little Bookshelf

Putnam Publishing Group, US, 2006

Hardback, 32 pages

ISBN: 978-0-6984-0036-8

Suggested reading age: 6+

Reviewed by: Indrani Perera

Rating: *****

Robert Ingpen is a supremely talented Australian illustrator.  The Dreamkeeper is a tale he has written especially for his granddaughter, Alice Elisabeth.  Luckily for those of us without artistic grandfathers, the story has been published for everyone to read!

Nobody has seen the Dreamkeeper but we do know that he wears old fashioned clothes hung with charms and lures for catching mischievous creatures that have escaped from The Great Dreamtree.  Once he captures the creatures, he returns them to the tree so they can't do any harm in the space between what is really happening and what you imagine might happen.  Gorgeous!

Pfeifer-Hamilton Publications, Duluth, 1999

Hardcover, 48 pages

ISBN: 978-1-5702-5199-3

Suggested reading age: 5+

Reviewed by: Indrani Perera

Rating: *****

The Quiltmaker's Gift is a modern fable of a greedy King and an old woman high in the mountains creating quilts for the poor people in the towns below.  What happens when the greedy King demands a gift from the Quiltmaker?  Will she give him one?

This book is filled with visual detail and is a perfect accompaniment to the text.  The endpapers of this book are decorated with quilts and their names.  The discerning reader will spy these quilts scattered throughout the story.  This book became a firm favourite with everyone in our family.