Thursday 3 April 2014

0 C is for Cave Baby

Part of the A to Z blogging challenge #atozchallenge

The Book:
Cave Baby written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Emily Gravett is a story of baby who lives in a cave and loves to paint and his journey with the woolly mammoth.



The Bubble:
The author-illustrator combo is just absolutely awesome. Emily Gravett makes the cave baby wearing a leafy-nappy look so adorably cute. The illustrations on every page is well detailed and lovely.

It is a story of a baby who lives in a cave with his mom and dad having pictures of tiger, hyena, hare, woolly mammoth and a big brown bear on his wall for company. Cave baby finds his cave boring since his mom and dad are busy. He finds paint and a brush and starts to paint patterns on those animals and has fun. Mum and dad are not happy seeing this and the dad threatens the baby saying
"If you don't take care, 
A mammoth's going to throw you to the big brown bear". 

The story continues on with the cave baby being taken away on a journey by the grey mammoth. Throughout the ride, the baby is dreading the big brown bear. Is the mammoth taking him to throw him to the big brown bear? Is he taking the cave baby on his dream journey? Is the ride on the mammoth a dream? Does the baby get to live his dream?
The effect of small things on the child's mind is brought out well in the book. The dad scares the baby of the big brown bear, it stays on the child's mind, he dreams of it, he dreads it all along. At the end of the story - the illustrations show how the baby no longer fears the bear - by depicting it as a small brown bear! Only Gravett and Donaldson can do that in a picture book.

Bubble Ink verdict:
We love the dreamy effect in the story. While the cave baby is riding on the mammoth, his fearful comments on seeing each animal, how dreadful he is of the big brown bear is delightful with the illustrations and the rhyming text.
"Cackle in the bracken. A hyena is laughing there.
Has he heard a joke about the big brown bear?"

One of those books which will grow with your child - Dreamy story, beautiful illustrations, rhyming text , Julia Donaldson, Emily Gravett - What more do you need for a picture book! That is a complete, sure hit package!

We give it 4 bubbles.
We borrowed our copy from Hippocampus Bangalore.
Watch the author perform the cave baby song here.
Bubbling's verdict:
The bubbling loves the story. She jumps in joy seeing the animals , but still says "Elephant" for the mammoth. Her latest favourite happens me to be little babies, so she took to the Cave Baby immediately. The time this book was the one that she wanted it to be read to her, every single day.
It is a Bubbling-Fab-Four.

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