Picture Book of the Week – Flock

*Gifted Item

After seeing the utter joy and the way my children were thoroughly captivated at the Little Tiger Picture Book Event last week, I’ve sort of fallen in love again with picture books. I think life can get so busy that I’d forgotten to sit back and drink in the joy these books provide.

I’m going to (try to) share our favourite books each week and this week it’s about a lovely book called Flock by Gemma Koomen.

This book, Flock, is billed as a Tree Keeper Adventure so I am hopeful that further tales might follow.  The tree keepers live in a great tree in the North woods and are tiny people, no taller than your thumb. They are busy people, caring for the tree or playing in its branches. However, Sylvia is scared of the noisy games and likes to be alone, until one day she spots a lost bird.

She befriends the birds until one day, they see a flock of birds and Sylvia realises she must say goodbye to her friend. When the bird leaves Sylvia is sad, until one day she says ‘yes’ to an invitation to play. She learns to join in an enjoy the games of her friends, and soon she finds she enjoys their noisy games, as much as they enjoy her quieter, calmer past times.

This is such a lovely book and it got us talking about ideas of friendship, learning to things that are right for others, and always trying something out as you never know what you might enjoy.

The illustrations are delightful, and almost ‘earthy’ in their composition, aided by the lovely brown and green tones used throughout. I love the idea of community that this book gently introduces and it’s effortless inclusivity through its illustrations of different ages of people to different races of people.

Flock is published by Frances Lincoln and the RRP is £12.99 for the hardback version that we were gifted. You can read more about the author here.