Anthony Browne

Anthony Browne. His style is very tight and controlled-- almost cold at times but this is balanced out by his imagery which is always very playful and surreal. He's one of those authors that children love and critics adore. So special siya. Some of his more popular books are the WILLY books, the BEAR stories and Voices in the Park. But i think that my favorite book by Browne is Piggybook.

The cover LOOKED boring. It's about Mr. Piggot and his two sons and how they mistreat Mrs. Piggot. You never see Mrs. Piggot's face as you see her cooking and cleaning. In each frame she's on her own. But the men are all facing the reader, doing things, messing about, ordering her around. Then in the middle of the book, Mrs. Piggot disappears. The only thing she leaves is a note, like a curse:
YOU ARE PIGS.
and the hand holding the note, is a pig's hoof. For the rest of the story Mr. Piggot and his boys are drawn as pigs. They can't manage the house, they can't cook for themselves and so by the end of the story they're on all fours, rooting around in the garbage. When Mrs. Piggot returns, we finally see her face. She's standing tall framed by the doorway and the pigs are grovelling in front of her: PLEASE COME BACK. She does and the ending is happy and equitable and fair. Hm.

I liked Browne's Bear Hunt. There are two picture books with Bear in them. He's this little white bear who has a magic pencil. When trouble comes his way he calmly (he's pretty dead pan) draws a solution. They're really funny. And you have so much stuff to pick out from the pictures.


Gorilla is one of Browne's most sensitive works. It's about a girl whose daddy is too busy to play with her and you get this strong (but not corny or sentimentalized) visualization of loneliness. There's a scene where she's eating by herself in a small lit corner of the room. And you know it's a living room but it also looks like a cave in a dark forest. She likes gorillas and when her birthday comes around she tells her daddy she wants (a real) one. But he gives her a toy. When she takes it to bed she wakes up to find that the gorilla is real. He puts on her daddy's clothes, takes her to the zoo at midnight and they go ballroom dancing in a park (her little feet on the gorilla's big feet while they waltz). When she wakes up the next day, her daddy is at her bedside and asks her, do u want to go to the zoo? She's very happy. I kinda miss my Daddoo.
Will add more to this when I've read more of his books. :)