The Book Sniffer: Here comes the SUN....

To celebrate being part of this fabulous blog tour Little Sniffer and I decided to make a picnic tea inspired by some of the things we spotted in Sun the latest seasonal delight from illustrator and author Sam Usher.

The first little chap to catch our eye was the charming little green parrot on the front cover. With his delightful green plumage and perky yellow beak he leant himself perfectly to a fabulously fruity Crudités creation!

We collected together as many different coloured fruits and vegetables as we could find and made this technicolour treat! complete with mango beak, pepper plumage, a nectarine tummy, apple face and a tiny black bean for an eye, as you can see he's perched quite magnificently on a strange branch of basil. Mini Sniffers verdict, a BIG thumbs up.

And now for something a bit more substantial!

Next to catch our eye this groovy looking chimp. Immediately we had a "Monkey Bun" in mind. So we set to work chopping snipping and shaping all of our favourite ingredients and fashioning them in to what I think you will agree is a rather marvellous looking sandwich!

We forgot to make a bow tie!

Olives for nostrils, eggs for eyes (with obligatory black bean pupils) BIG green cucumber ears, a pepper mouth with a goofy ham tongue.... all in all quite unexpectedly delicious.

Now for Little Monkey's favourite part of any meal, picnic or otherwise.

Time of pudding! We were quite taken by the magnificent glittering sandcastle on the cover and Little Sniffer is unusually partial to jelly so we made a passionfruit jelly pot complete with sand made from crunched up biscuits.

I hardly had time to photograph this particular component of our picnic as it was gobble up in a flash.

REVIEW

We have always been huge fans of this beautifully illustrated series of picture books, first the wintery delight which was Snow, then the atmospheric triumph which was Rain and now a scorching celebration of sunshine Sun.

Sun is nothing short of a triumph, beaming with illustrative charm and unashamedly revelling in traditional storytelling with nothing but joy and adventure at it's core. I always delight in the beautiful intuitive depiction of the relationship between a boy and his grandfather in these books and this one in particular radiates love and friendship at it's most pure. The gentle evolution of the story is told so cleverly by at first the most subtle of detail, gently unfolding as heat parched landscapes dominate the pages. You'll never guess who boy and his grandfather unexpectedly chance upon.

Hold on to your sun hats the almost unbelievable adventure which is about to unfold...