Books like Imagine

This isn't so much a story as a series of imaginative scenarios: children playing, creating worlds in their collective imaginations, turning bunk beds into tents and fishbowls into the ocean. The corresponding text consists of a beautifully-worded, poetic ode to the scene they've created through play-acting, and then you turn the page and get a double-page spread of what they're seeing in their own heads. An elaborate panorama of an Amazonian jungle or African plains or Australian wilderness or a farm or deep in the ocean or among the dinosaurs. A mix of fact and fiction, with the children turned into mermaids, or swinging through the trees, while surrounded by real-life animals and other creatures that belong to that particular landscape.Around these panoramic illustrations are strings of nouns, all the names of the creatures that can be found in the pictures. It's a kind of treasure hunt, like Graeme Base's Animalia or even a bit Where's Wally?-ish. The vocabulary will push both kids and adults - there were plenty of nouns I didn't recognise, and animals etc. that I couldn't name. Helpfully, though, there's a kind of cheat sheet at the back of the book so that you can learn them. But there are easy, recognisable animals too, and even two-year-olds have fun spotting (and counting) the animals, or describing what everything is doing, or asking "What's that? What's that?"!I had meant to scan a couple of pages (and quote some text) to show you what this wonderful book looks like inside, but unfortunately I didn't get a chance - or I plum forgot - before all my books were packed up by the movers, and it'll be months before I have access to them again. So I guess we'll just have to use our imaginations! (Though you can see a few interior illustrations on Lester's website.)This one is fun for adult readers, too, especially for anyone who remembers doing this kind of creative play: making tunnels out of couch cushions, or camps out of broken branches, forts out of straw bales and so on. Who hasn't made a mud pie or two? It triggers our sense of nostalgia, while encouraging children to enjoy and develop their imaginations, all while teaching everyone some great new vocabulary.