Review: Nalah and the Pink Tiger by Anne Sawyer-Aitch

Purchase Price: $11.86 USD on amazon.com
Nalah and the Pink Tiger [Paperback]
Not Yet Released On amazon.ca

Note: I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads. This is not a paid review, my comments and opinions are mine alone, they are honest impressions, and have not been influenced by the Author or Publisher.

Genre: Children's Books, Children's Literature, Children's Fiction, Illustrated Children's Books

**This Review Contains Some Spoilers** 

Nalah and the Pink Tiger is a lovely first published story book from the very talented Anne Sawyer-Aitch. The story introduces us to the fabulously imaginative young Nalah, who lives in a world of her imagination, where brightly coloured and precocious animals inhabit the rooms of her family home. She has grouchy Mouse living in her sock drawer, a poetic Pig in her bathroom sink, and an Emu that lives in the dining room chandelier.

All these animals are quite silly, and Nalah interacts with them as if they are really with her. On a special visit to the Zoo, Nalah meets a Pink Tiger and her imagination once again goes into overdrive and the Tiger's silly antics follow her home.

I think that for a first Children's book, Nalah and the Pink Tiger is very special indeed. The most charming thing about the book are the illustration, also done by Sawyer-Aitch. I love that the process of creating these magical illustrations is explained in the back of the book. As an artsy crafty person myself, I can appreciate the immense amount of work that each colour filled page must have required.

While reading the book with my nephew, who is seven years old, he was a little confused at the order of the lines in the story. They do appear in different spots around the page, some being plot points, other parts being side dialogue between Nalah and her animals. But he was able to read the book with a fair pace for a Second Grader who only speaks English half of the day at school. Some words were new to him, like "puce", and we had fun looking that up in the dictionary together. He considers himself an artist, as his mother is a graphic artist and I dabble in all media, including Papier-mâché and Acrylic Painting, and he has been doing his own 'Art' since he was a wee bitty fellow. He really liked looking at all the details and the special effects in the images on every page, and that was a nice thing to start a discussion about making books, and how the process might work.

Fired Up Rating: 4/5 Flames

Bottom Line (By My 7 Year Old Nephew): "I think this is a nice book for girls, and also kids that may like animals."

Bottom Line: My feeling is that this book is very special, it is obviously a labor of love by the author, you can see it on every page. Every child should be encouraged to use their imagination. I think that the only issue is what my nephew, and I admit, I myself, found tricky, which is the changing font sizes and the scattered layout of the text bubbles. That is something that can be easily overlooked, and I would recommend this book as a lovely gift for imaginative and artsy children and their parents to share together.