My Island

A young girl imagines a lovely island populated by thousands of birds, where she picnics with her animals, plays games, reads, and collects flowers. You too are welcome on this island, if you know how to dream. Gorgeous, colorful illustrations accompany this gentle yet impactful story that celebrates the imagination of young readers. Stephanie Demasse-Pottier lives and works in France as a librarian specializing in children's books. My Island is her first book to appear in English. Editorial Reviews New York Journal of Books In a world of sensory overload, My Island provides an oasis for young imaginations. My Island is the perfect soothing antidote to a busy day. Slow down, sit down, and read to your child and then watch as his/her imagination takes flight. Kirkus Reviews The child's seriousness in orchestrating these island activities will make perfect sense to readers--they know imagining isn't playtime. Pretending feels immensely personal, intimate even, and the child's emotive brown eyes show this in their intensity and, at times, vulnerability. Visual accents make the protagonist's tender age clear, as well as how extraordinarily dense, flamboyant, and boundless a very young child's imagination can be. Watercolors, colored pencils, and stitched red thread (which appears as dotted lines incorporated into each illustration) create vivid pictures of this pretend place, where anything can happen. Readers will certainly make the leap and stay a while. School Library Journal The illustrations, rendered with watercolors, colored pencils, and red thread, are a riot of geometric patterns relying heavily on red, yellow, and bluish-green hues. Size and scale are upended in an Alice in Wonderland fashion. Originally published in French, the simple text is open-ended, allowing readers to spend time exploring the illustrations or their own daydreams.