One Small Island by Alison Lester
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A gorgeous, gorgeous non-fiction picture book, all about Macquarie Island, south of Australia. Alison Lester is known for her stunning picture books, and this is yet another one. However there's something far more adult about this one than others. Not adult in a maturity sense, but the feeling that the book is written for a broader audience, with an attempt to bring adults into its environmental message as well as children.
I also have "Sophie Scott Goes South" to read - another book from Lester's trip to Antarctica as part of her Arts Fellowship - and that one is much more traditional Lester.
"One Small Island", however, has scattered through it maps, journal entries from early explorers and sealers, facsimile copies of pictures from various Macquarie Island Yearbooks, and other scrapbook-style minutiae. These pages alternate with beautiful double page spread paintings of the island and its habitat. The endpapers deserve special mention, because they, too, are vital to the information being shared in this book.
It's a lovely, lovely book, and it's on my "want to own" list, probably along with "Sophie Scott Goes South", but you'll find out about that once I've read and reviewed it.
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