As a nonfiction picture book, The Blue Whale aims to draw children into the life and world of this enormous whale by situating facts within a familiar context that is fun and engaging. We get the actual size of an eye right on the page, and we understand this whale's body size in relation to trucks, cars, milk bottles, and hippos! With an accurate and engaging text, fully vetted by a blue whale expert, and lyrical, lovely illustrations, The Blue Whale is a book that will invite children in and hold their attention. Its tempo is like a pleasing melody, which means that the information never becomes too weighty or exhausting?a key thing when it comes to young readers and their enjoyment of a book!

A graduate of the renowned MA children's book illustration program at the Cambridge School of Art (ARU), Jenni Desmond works from her studio in London, England. She uses collage, paint, and pencil crayons to create her artwork, which she then scans and edits by computer. Jenni strives to make her illustrations entertaining, beautiful, and funny in equal measure. Her first picture book Red Cat Blue Cat (Blue Apple Books, 2012) won the Cambridgeshire Read it Again Picture Book Award 2013, and she has shown her artwork in many exhibitions in the United Kingdom, including the Royal Academy of Art Summer Exhibition.

Dutch artists dominated the genre of landscape painting in the seventeenth century, and Dutch Landscapes brings together more than one hundred lavish color images of their beautiful paintings, which remain popular with art lovers and museum-goers today.

         
The volume is dominated by stunning evocations of the landscape of Holland—its manmade lowlands and richly foreboding skies—populated with peasants at their labors and aristocrats riding off to the hunt. But Dutch artists didn’t limit themselves to views of their homeland: they also ventured to Italy, where the wildly different landscape inspired new approaches and themes, from Arcadian wilderness to the lively activity of the Roman streetscape. And then there was the sea—the source of the Netherlands’ prosperity—which painters captured in all its drama and power.

            
Desmond Shawe-Taylor’s accessible notes to each picture link the paintings and explore their relationships, their shared approaches, and their many innovations; the result is a book that brings to life the Dutch Golden Age in all its glory.