The Whales’ Song is a dreamlike picture book that celebrates the wonder of imagination and the enduring mystery of the sea. Lilly’s grandmother tells her enchanting stories of whales—how they sing, how they move, and how, if offered a gift, they might even make contact. Lilly is captivated, her heart opening to the possibility of hearing their haunting songs.

The contrast between the grandmother’s reverence for the whales and the grandfather’s brusque dismissal—“whales are for eating”—introduces a gentle tension, one that plays out quietly in both text and illustration. A particularly striking spread shows the domestic scene from above: Lilly curled up in her grandmother’s lap, the cat dozing nearby, while her grandfather's leg disappears off the edge of the page as he leaves the room. It’s a brilliant use of perspective, full of unspoken feeling.

The illustrations throughout are luminous. Close-up portraits of Lilly and her grandmother feel almost magical in their intimacy, while double-page spreads show the grandeur of the whales framed in white borders. The atmosphere of Lilly’s night-time encounters with the whales is deepened by the evocative use of shade and light. Moonlit oceans shimmer in tones of sepia and cream.

Together, author and illustrator have crafted a story that is both gentle and powerful—a tribute to the animal kingdom, the gift of storytelling, and the space in children’s lives for wonder.

Red Fox (Random House Children’s Books). Paperback. 1993.

This picture book is a delightful story about three little owls, Sarah, Percy and Bill at night.  They wake up in the dark to find their mother gone, a fear many young children hold. They are scared and each expresses their feelings in different ways. Sarah, the eldest baby owl says she’s gone hunting for food. Percy, the middle owl, agrees with her. Baby owl Bill is upset “I want my mummy!”  Sarah ever comforting suggests they huddle together on one branch.

The text is beautifully supported by the illustrations throughout as in the scene “a big branch for Sarah, a small branch for Percy, and an old bit of ivy for Bill”. The aloneness of the owls is evident in a perspective of three tiny owls in the distance sitting in a verdant green tree landscape.

The wonderful illustrations in this book by Patrick Benson are so tactile that you feel you can almost reach out and touch the owls’ downy white feathers contrasting with the mother’s brown feathers. The baby owls’ fears of abandonment is exquisitely illustrated in a series of close-ups. Benson uses watercolour and ink to capture the backdrop of forest and night time.

This is a book for babies and toddlers. The large clear type which changes colour cleverly to suit the illustrations would allow children from the age of 3+ to follow the text and makes it a suitable book also for slightly older children learning to read.

Martin Waddell is a prolific children’s writer from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is especially well known for his collaborations with the illustrator Barbara Firth on the Little Bear series.

The O’Brien Press, Dublin, 1992.

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