Annie and the Wild Animals

Description

A favorite book that young readers will want to listen to and look at over and over again. Where is Taffy? Annie looks and looks, but she can't find her marmalade cat anywhere. When Taffy doesn't come home, Annie is lonely, so she puts a corn cake at the edge of the woods. Maybe a small furry creature will come for a nibble and become her pet. Instead, a giant moose finds the corn cake. But he's much too big for a pet. So are the other animals - a grumpy bear, a snarling wildcat, and others - who show up to eat Annie's cakes until there are none left. The wild animals roar for more. What will Annie do now? Exquisite snowy landscapes filled with raucous wild animals are framed in lively borders that hint at what Taffy is up to all the way through to the end, when she brings home the best surprise Annie could have hoped for. A favorite book that young readers will want to listen to and look at over and over again. Praise for Annie and the Wild Animals 'The small glimpses of the world outside Annie's cottage move the tale forward and embellish the pages with grace and skill. 'The illustrations . . . are a veritable treasure of motifs taken from the universal tradition of folk art and crafts, including fanciful ironwork animals, a humorous mosaic cat . . . and a merry abundance of patchwork designs.' The New York Times 'The pictures hold countless surprises. Indisputably, this is a work of wonder that deserves highest honors.' Publishers Weekly

With over thirty seven million books in print, Jan Brett is one of the USA's foremost author illustrators of children's books. Jan lives in a seacoast town in Massachusetts, close to where she grew up. During the summer her family moves to a home in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. As a child, Jan Brett decided to be an illustrator and spent many hours reading and drawing. She says, 'I remember the special quiet of rainy days when I felt that I could enter the pages of my beautiful picture books. Now I try to recreate that feeling of believing that the imaginary place I'm drawing really exists. The detail in my work helps to convince me, and I hope others as well, that such places might be real.' As a student at the Boston Museum School, she spent hours in the Museum of Fine Arts. 'It was overwhelming to see the room-size landscapes and towering stone sculptures, and then moments later to refocus on delicately embroidered kimonos and ancient porcelain,' she says. 'I'm delighted and surprised when fragments of these beautiful images come back to me in my painting.' Travel is also a constant inspiration. Together with her husband, Joe Hearne, who is a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Jan visits many different countries where she researches the architecture and costumes that appear in her work. 'From cave paintings to Norwegian sleighs, to Japanese gardens, I study the traditions of the many countries I visit and use them as a starting point for my children's books.'

"The pictures hold countless surprises. Indisputably, this is a work of wonder that deserves highest honors." -Publishers Weekly