Love Is a Handful of Honey - Hardcover

Vanessa Cabban in an award winning artist, who has illustrated numerous books for Orchard, including the bestselling Love is a Handful of Honey and There's a House inside my Mummy, both written by Giles Andreae. Giles Andreae is the author of many top selling award-winning picture books. For Orchard, these include Rumble in the Jungle, Commotion in the Ocean, and I Love My Mummy. However, it is for the international bestseller Giraffes Can't Dance that he is best known. Giles is also the creator of Purple Ronnie, Britain's favourite stickman, and of the artist / philosopher, Edward Monkton. These two ranges of greetings cards, books and merchandise have made Giles the country's top selling living poet and an icon of contemporary popular culture. Giles's other work has included poetry installations for The Natural History Museum and for the Selfridges Millennium windows. He is an ambassador for The Arts Award and Tesco's Ambassador for Books into Schools and Clubs. Giles lives with his wife, Victoria, a children's clothes designer, and their four young children by the river in Oxfordshire.

PreSchool-K-Cabban captures and communicates the perpetual motion of a carefree toddler. The rhyming text follows a young bear through a day of normal doings (walking with parents, a picnic with friends, bath time). Each double-page spread shows the smiling youngster finding love in an activity. "Love is splish-splashing through puddles,/And love's getting soaked in the rain./Love is a rainbow that bursts through the sky/When the Sun begins shining again." The book is saved from being overly sweet, though just barely, by the exuberance of the watercolor-and-ink illustrations. This book is meant for one-on-one sharing, and youngsters will enjoy searching for the tiny mice that follow the young bear and his friends on their adventures. If your copy of Sam McBratney's Guess How Much I Love You (Candlewick, 1995) sees a lot of action, this book will too.
Timothy Capehart, Leominster Public Library, MA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.