Book Review: There's a Little Black Spot on the Sun Today by Sven Volker

When I saw this on *Netgalley I immediately clicked to read it. It sounded so interesting. It is a children's book but I didn't wait for my son to read it. I bypassed him and read this one by myself.

This book illustrates the lyrics of Sting's classic song King of Pain. Sven's son has been enduring a lot of pain and after hearing Sting's song Sven's son declares that he is the King of Pain.

Wow where to begin. The backstory here of Sven's son is heartbreaking for anyone to read about. The illustrations are as minimal as you can get. In fact it is all made up of triangles. But oh my god does it work. The illustration for the line about standing out in the rain is my favorite. It is just brilliant!

I don't think I'll be reading this one to my son. Just because I don't think he will understand it. He might like the illustrations but I think this topic is a bit too deep for him.

That being said I loved it! Even though at first the artwork seems amaturish once you his that picture of the rain with the silhouette of a person you realize that there is real artistry here. It actually takes some talent to create the images of the lyrics while only using triangles. Some were very abstract and it was fun figuring it out.

I'm going with 4 out of 5 stars!


*I recieved a review copy from *Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Armchair BEA: Day Two Visual Expressions

Ok so I know today's agenda is really supposed to be about comics/graphic novels...but I have to go with another visual medium. Children's picture books!

My son is seven and has multiple learning disabilities. His main classification is communication impairment. To put it simply my son often has a hard time understanding things that are said to him and he has a hard time saying what he wants. It is all in how is brain is wired. Often times things just don't connect for him. So we often get asked the same question over and over and over again. Not just in the normal child questioning way but in his way of trying to understand things.

Because of his disabilities he is not ready for chapter books or overly wordy books. But picture books are just perfect for him. He gets a story and the pictures help him to understand what is going on. Through the pictures he suddenly sees what is happening and he understands it better.

I've always been a fan of children's books but ever since I started reading them to my son I've grown to love them even more. I LOVE looking at the artwork. I love when the artwork is so good that you don't even have to read the words to know what is happening. Its wonderful when I can had a book to my son and wants to look through it and can tell me what is happening. Whenever I read a book to him I always ask what was his favorite picture.

I just read a book last night (review to come shortly) called Abigail and Her Pet Zombie by Marie F. Crow. I haven't read it to my son yet but am so looking forward to reading it to him tonight. Anyway, the pictures in this book were AMAZING!!! I mean I just could not stop staring at them. That's the kind of picture books I love. The ones that make you keep going back and back again to look at them.