Anthony Browne is an internationally acclaimed author/illustrator who won the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award for services to children's literature in 2000. He became the sixth British Children's Laureate in 2009 and in this role he says:
'I hope to encourage more children to discover and love reading, but I want to focus particularly on the appreciation of picture books, and the reading of both pictures and words. Picture books are for everybody at any age, not books to be left behind as we grow older. The best ones leave a tantalising gap between the pictures and the words, a gap that is filled by the reader's imagination, adding so much to the excitement of reading a book.'
His books have many fans as his protagonists seem to cry out for your empathy, possibly because they are sensitive souls who appear lonely even when surrounded by others. He has an affection for gorillas and they appear in many of his stories. The children in my library like his series of stories about Willy. See Willy the Wimp; Willy the Champ; Willy and Hugh and others. The parents like The Shape Game, Silly Billy and Piggybook. In his new book , Me and You, he has returned to fairytales for inspiration, here Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and like Hansel and Gretel it may appear to be dark, but as in many of his books he is looking at point of view, and here we get the bears and the intruding girl's point of view. Whichever of his books you choose to read there is always so much to look at, think about and admire.
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