This is NOT a Book!

Kellie Byrnes

Aska

EK Books, 2021 

32pp., hbk., RRP $A24.99

9781925820508

In this brightly illustrated book. the main character is convinced they’re not in a book How can they be when they are real?  After all, if this were a book, there’d be pages to turn … Oops! We’ve turned the page. But that’s not proof this is a book.

Even if there are pages to turn, there would be things happening and there would be a focus and other characters, a distinct time period and exciting settings, action to be involved in, problems to solve . yet, to him, there is nothing happening, despite what is being portrayed in the illustrations.

it is one of four books from this publisher – the others are The Art of Words  The Leaky Story,  and My Storee – that focus on metafiction, helping young readers become young writers. Told by the main character (who is deliberately not identified by gender) in a monologue, the text in this story says one thing whilst in the illustrations the opposite is happening, showing that all the elements  the character says should be in a book -main and subsidiary characters, settings, plots, problems, resolutions and so forth – are actually there. 

This is a novel way to help children turn their ideas into written stories to share with others and teachers’ notes are available.