Anna the Bookbinder

Rating:
Summary: Anna and the string
Review: You can write a children's picture book about almost anything these days, but this was the first bookbinding item I'd yet seen. In this simple tale, Anna is the daughter of a bookbinder. Her father is slowly loosing his business to the new competitive binderies, and her mother is pregnant with their second child. When the unexpected birth coincides poorly with an urgent binding order, it's up to Anna to practice the family art and save the day.

First of all, I'd just like to say what a relief it is to have a heroine in a picture book wearing glasses. Usually if a girl is in a book and there are glasses on her head, the ENTIRE storyline concentrates on her acceptance of the glasses or she is a computer/science/math genius. In this story, no mention is made of them, so well done there. The plot and setting of the story, however, are a bit unclear. It appears that this tale takes place somewhere in Europe, possibly before World War Two. Anna and her family could well be Jewish, but if so the author's not telling. The plot is intricately tied to the classic Aesop tale of the Tortoise and the Hare, with the motto "Slow and steady wins the race" (Anna's mantra). Just to be facetious, I'll point out that though the book rails against binding books with glue, "glue will get hard and the books' spines will crack", this book itself is glue bound. But all in all, it's a fine story. Not particularly thrilling or different, but nice. If you've a kid into book binding, I couldn't think of a better choice (mixed praise, I know).

Rating:
Summary: Anna and the string
Review: You can write a children's picture book about almost anything these days, but this was the first bookbinding item I'd yet seen. In this simple tale, Anna is the daughter of a bookbinder. Her father is slowly loosing his business to the new competitive binderies, and her mother is pregnant with their second child. When the unexpected birth coincides poorly with an urgent binding order, it's up to Anna to practice the family art and save the day.

First of all, I'd just like to say what a relief it is to have a heroine in a picture book wearing glasses. Usually if a girl is in a book and there are glasses on her head, the ENTIRE storyline concentrates on her acceptance of the glasses or she is a computer/science/math genius. In this story, no mention is made of them, so well done there. The plot and setting of the story, however, are a bit unclear. It appears that this tale takes place somewhere in Europe, possibly before World War Two. Anna and her family could well be Jewish, but if so the author's not telling. The plot is intricately tied to the classic Aesop tale of the Tortoise and the Hare, with the motto "Slow and steady wins the race" (Anna's mantra). Just to be facetious, I'll point out that though the book rails against binding books with glue, "glue will get hard and the books' spines will crack", this book itself is glue bound. But all in all, it's a fine story. Not particularly thrilling or different, but nice. If you've a kid into book binding, I couldn't think of a better choice (mixed praise, I know).