English / New Zealand
How to be famous
Shaleṿ, Michal
(Shalev, Mikhal)
(text/illus.)
Wellington: Gecko Press, 2016. – [32] p.
ISBN 978-1-776570-29-4
Fame | Picture book | Vanity | Self-perception
Reading age: 4+
White Ravens issue: 2016
Israeli artist Michal Shalev, who studied illustration and animation in Israel and the UK, has a particular fondness for drawing birds. The undisputed star – or so the text would have you believe – of her first picture book is a vain grey pigeon that has obviously taken a leaf out of US illustrator Mo Willems’s well-known pigeon books. Convinced of its great beauty and importance, the self-centred bird rambles on about its family’s fame and its own perfection. Attentive readers, however, will soon grasp a completely different story from the witty mixed-media illustrations. The single- and double-page spreads in muted tones clearly show that the feathery megalomaniac manages to incur the wrath of animals and humans wherever it appears. With deliberately sketch-like lines full of brio, the illustrator easily depicts the other characters’ exasperation and thus exposes the bird’s self-delusion – which leads to an unexpected and hilarious (but cruel) end.