Umbrella

Lovely bold, expressive drawing conjures a magical story in Elena Arevalo Melville’s heart-warming picture book Umbrella.

* The Sunday Times *

This quirky book takes a familiar folktale trope – the object of power, capable of granting wishes to the righteous - and plays with it, forging its own eccentric and appealing path through a landscape that feels fresh and new. Arevalo Melville’s illustrations are confident to be themselves and don’t talk down – there’s no hint of the cute and cuddly in this book, despite its subject-matter, and children will be pleasantly challenged as well as entertained.

* Books for Keeps *

Elena Arevalo Melville’s use of a minimal colour palette until the penultimate spread serves to make that illustration all the more perfect too. Her somewhat surreal tale of empathy, kindness and community is one to share and discuss at every opportunity.

* Red Reading Hub *

The power of kindness and the triple joys of magic, music and the miraculous lie at the heart of this clever, colourful story which celebrates our rights to express ourselves and to choose our own friends.

* Lancashire Evening Post *

Oh, this is a brilliantly bizarre picture book, no doubt about that! A young girl finds and shows kindness to a sentient umbrella (yes, really) that magically returns the favour tenfold. Thus ensues a series of astonishingly realised events, culminating in a well- pitched finale demonstrating the healing power of forgiveness. A superb work: an example of a text being paired with its perfect publisher. Joyous!

* Northern Scottish Papers *

Young readers will want to experience the magic of the umbrella again and again – and see the ordinary become extraordinary!

* The Book Activi