So You Want To Build A Library, written by Lindsay Leslie and illustrated by Aviel Basil

I loved, loved, loved this picture book! It is super fun. The cover just oozes imagination, humor and adventure and the book inside does not disappoint either! The wording is friendly, uplifting, empowering and not heavy handed at all. The sparseness helps build the humor and tension really well and Leslie has a gift for letting the illustrations and the readers imagination do what it should do in a picture book.

My daughter Caitlin loves nothing better than roaming the shelves of a library and checking out piles of books so this book really resonated well with her, as well as with me. The addition of giants, knights and fairies was right up her street too, because who doesn’t want to build a library with fairytale creatures when all you do is read about them all day long! The books whole concept is perfect.

The illustrations work so well with the fun, conversational tone of the writing too. They are bold, bright, cartoonish and full of child-relatable humor. Basil’s personality and imagination really shines through in the artwork. Having so many characters keeps it fresh every time you read it as you can always spot something new with every storytelling session.

Apart from the illustrations and writing, what I liked about the book was the cleverly woven in theme of construction. In a very subtle way Leslie gets her readers thinking about the process of design, building and teamwork. 

Caitlin and I highly recommend this book for any young booklover – it is sure to be a bit hit with them!