If
By Sarah Perry
I want to start by talking about the illustrations in this book. There is not much text in the book so the focus is mostly on the illustrations. The premise of the book is “what if” statements. An example from the book is, “what if toes were teeth?” The corresponding illustration was of a girl smiling and instead of teeth there are toes in her mouth! The illustrations are very vivid and very interesting to look at. These illustrations are of things that we do not think about or visualize, like mice for hair and caterpillars for toothpaste. By having these different and interesting illustrations it made it hard to tear my eyes away from this book. Some of the illustrations are so vivid that they made me cringe and I had to look away because they were so life like. The mice for hair illustration was slightly disgusting but the fish as leaves Illustration was beautiful and eye catching.
The illustration definitely made this book. I loved how the illustrations and the “what if” statements open the flood gates of imagination. The “what if” statements are far fetched, like what if music could be held, but that what makes it fun and shows children that they can think outside of the box. This would be a great book to read when you want to inspire imagination and creativity.