More

by I. C. Springman, Brian Lies (Illustrator)

Overview

One magpie,
lots of stuff,
and a few friendly mice
show us that less is
more.
This innovative and spare picture book asks the question: When is MORE more than enough? Can a team of well-intentioned mice save their friend from hoarding too much stuff? With breathtaking illustrations from the award-winning Brian Lies, this book about conservation wraps an important message in a beautiful package.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547610863
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/06/2012
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	8 MB
Age Range:	4 - 7 Years

About the Author

I.C. Springman has published short stories in various literary magazines. More is Springman's first children's book.

Brian Lies is the New York Times bestselling creator of Bats at the Beach, Bats at the Library, Bats at the Ballgame, Bats in the Band, and the Caldecott Honor book The Rough Patch. He has written and/or illustrated dozens of other acclaimed books for children. He lives with his family in a small seaside town in Massachusetts, where he tends a big and thriving garden. 

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Dramatic paintings add depth and foreboding to a lesson about excessive materialism."—Kirkus

"The fable offers a finely drawn, restrained 'less is more' lesson about attachment to things."—Publishers Weekly

"This is a timely, clearly needed fable for contemporary society as it tries to unravel itself from excessive materialism. Ideal for discussions about reducing consumption."—School Library Journal, starred review "This minimally told story delivers a strong antimaterialism message, and kids with a habit of amassing stuff may, like Magpie, recognize their own reflections."—Booklist "The lesson about living simply carries here, gracefully communicated both in the illustrations and the spare text."—Bulletin

"The message here is overt, but the treatment is clever, effective, and commendably understated."—Horn Book

Editorial Reviews

…a cautionary tale sparingly…and lavishly illustrated…
—The New York Times Book Review

Sophie Blackall

"Dramatic paintings add depth and foreboding to a lesson about excessive materialism."—Kirkus "The fable offers a finely drawn, restrained 'less is more' lesson about attachment to things."—Publishers Weekly "This is a timely, clearly needed fable for contemporary society as it tries to unravel itself from excessive materialism. Ideal for discussions about reducing consumption."—School Library Journal, starred review "This minimally told story delivers a strong antimaterialism message, and kids with a habit of amassing stuff may, like Magpie, recognize their own reflections."—Booklist "The lesson about living simply carries here, gracefully communicated both in the illustrations and the spare text."—Bulletin "The message here is overt, but the treatment is clever, effective, and commendably understated."—Horn Book —

From the Publisher

Dramatic paintings add depth and foreboding to a lesson about excessive materialism. Magpies are famous for collecting shiny objects, and this protagonist is a classic exemplar. At first, he stands in the bottom-right corner of a blank spread, downcast. Composition and expression display his isolated melancholy; the text murmurs, "Nothing." A mouse gives him a marble, which sets the bird to collecting objects and building many nests to hold them. Text remains sparse: "A few, / several, // more / and more and more. // Lots." The plot is simple: The collected objects become so numerous that a nest crashes to the ground, burying the magpie. (Mice unbury him; he's uninjured.) The unsurprising moral is that two or three objects are, "Yes, enough" (though the magpie still needs the mouse's persuasion to accept that lesson). Lies contrasts pale, faintly patterned backgrounds of handmade paper with forceful close-ups in acrylic and colored pencil. Large, dark areas inside the nests show stolen items--Lego, penny, toothbrush, binky, spoon--as identifiable but no longer shiny, emphasizing Springman's message. The illustration of the crash is downright scary. This magpie's leg-band goes unexplained; does it symbolize entrapment, civilization or the infinite danger (the numbers echo Pi) of hoarding? Young readers not overwhelmed by the visual intensity will chant the minimal text; older ones will note questions about accumulation, materialism, friendship--and how to decide what's meaningful. (Picture book. 3-8)

Kirkus Reviews