Novelty books

Press, 1 June 1989, Page 12

Novelty books

Old-fashioned sentiment gets the full treatment in Jannat Messenger’s “Lullaby and Goodnight” (Collins, $19.95). Pull a tab inside the front cover and Brahms’s famous lullaby tinkles forth. On rose-scattered pages, the traditional words are set out a verse at a time, opposite Messenger’s detailed, tap-estry-like pictures of olde-worlde babyhood. On the inside back cover, the roses pop up in all their cut-out glory and a star twinkles magically through the window. Eric Hill’s famous dog, Spot, loses his ball in “Spot Goes to the Circus,” now published in Picture Puffin ($10.99). Chasing the ball round the animals’ quarters gives the beginning reader the added fun of lifting a flap to find out what reaction Spot gets. In “The Secret Birthday Message” (Hamish Hamilton, $24.95). Eric Carle uses bold washes of colour and cut-outs

to lead the young reader on a mystery adventure trail to find a hidden birthday present. The book was originally published in 1972, following up the techniques used so successfully by Carle is his nowclassic “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.” Pan’s Young Piper division has come up with a clever idea for readers in the five-to-eight age range. The Flipper series offers two books in one; when you have finished one story, you flip the book over and start again at the back. The series includes two Mrs Simkin books and two Ursula stories by Linda Allen; two Harry stories by Shiela Lavelle; two Russell Hoban stories about Tom and Captain Najork, illustrated Quentin Blake; and "King Henry’s Palace” and “Tale of Thomas Mead” by Pat Hutchings. The books are cheaply produced, with lively black and white illustrations, at $5.95.