A review by thecommonswings
Fierce Bad Rabbits: The Tales Behind Children's Picture Books by Clare Pollard

5.0

A glorious book: part history, part memoir, part academic essay, part polemic for why picture books are so important. Pollard is a wonderful writer - to the extent that you can almost hear her talking to you, guiding you through centuries of writers and ideas - and manages to delicately negotiate through well loved classics whilst also showing you new ways to think about them. She's also very funny and able to drop a huge amount of interesting facts without ever showing off. A wonderful book, a celebration but also an attempt to take the form seriously as an art. As someone who's basically dreamed of doing Picture Books for years it's made me even more determined. Shame there's no mention of the very greatest picture book of all time, The Story of Horace by Alice M Coats but maybe for the second edition?