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Mick Manning and Brita Granström specialize in lyrical non- fiction picture books. They have written and illustrated over 60 books and have won many awards, including the Smarties Silver Award, the English Association Award and The Royal Society Young People’s Book Award. Their previous books, published internationally and in many languages, include the award-winning Fly on the Wall series, Tail-End Charlie, What Mr Darwin Saw, Charles Dickens: An Extraordinary Life, Nature Adventures, Wild Adventures, The Beatles and William Shakespeare. Mick and Brita live in the Scottish Borders. Read a Q&A with Mick and Brita here.
The partnership of Mick Manning and Brita Granström has undoubtedly transformed the approach to non-fiction over the past 20 award-winning years and here they have illuminated that tricky curriculum requirement of studying Britain in the Stone Age with their trademark information picturebook style. This book actually is much more than that; it defines the start of history, which is from the point at which humans began to write and record and asks the reader to take a bold and imaginative journey through the millennia that came before. From the very formation of the Earth and Moon to the beginnings of life and the slow progression and development of our planet, through dinosaurs, extinction events and to the eventual appearance of man. The lively text does not talk down or patronise and is highly educative in the use of correct terminology for naming the epochs and creatures as they develop. The inclusive characters that accompany the reader on the journey help to ground us in the familiar and personify our curiosity. The images are striking and informative while being gently amusing. A very informative glossary and a Timeline Game to help test your understanding complete this valuable package. An exciting book which will be picked up for reading pleasure as well as being a real asset for the curriculum.
A friendly and inspiring introduction to art history, telling the stories of the world's greatest paintings and artists from prehistory to the modern day The Story of Paintings begins with the cave paintings of our Stone Age ancestors and continues through to the modern day. Mick Manning and Brita Granstroem take your on a tour of their personally selected gallery which showcases the work of some of the world's most famous artists and few a less well-known ones. The artists featured include van Eyck, da Vinci, Bruegel, Rembrandt, Velazquez, JMW Turner, Van Gogh, Monet, Matisse, Georgia O'Keefe, Picasso, Frida Kahlo and Jackson Pollock as well as Dame Laura Knight and Kalan Khan. The friendly text and illustrations help children to appreciate the art, highlighting interesting biographical details and picking out key details to spot. The book's large format means the art is reproduced on a wonderfully impactful scale. This really is a book to give and treasure. The creative team of Mick Manning and Brita Granstroem are well-known for their ground breaking children's information books. Their many awards range the TES Information Book Award for What's Under the Bed? and the English Association Non-fiction award for Charlie's War Illustrated.
April 2017 Book of the Month Who better to take young readers on a guided tour of the British Library than Mick Manning and Brita Granström? Words and pictures work perfectly together to give children a vivid sense of the greatest library in the world, and some of the amazing books to be found there. It begins with a look at the St Cuthbert Gospel, a photo of the book part of a collage also featuring a representation of the saint in his coffin and sketches depicting the book’s extraordinary history. There are equally lively pages on the Lindisfarne Gospel, Beowulf, Mrs Beeton’s cookbook and many more. The approach is as varied as the books featured, while the facts contained will inform and fascinate readers of all ages. It concludes with notes on the authors of the featured books and a helpful glossary. A unique and fascinating way of examining the history of the book through one of our greatest institutions. ~ Andrea Reece
Shortlisted for the English Picture Book Award 2016 | Mick Manning and Brita Granström have developed a picture book approach to non-fiction that brings their subjects to vivid life. Beautifully illustrated throughout in coloured pencil and watercolour and with pen and ink for the hand lettering, this is beautiful to look at and packed with information. There is lots on Shakespeare’s childhood – stories of the famous as children always catch the imagination of young readers – and the book provides a very clear impression of Tudor life. It explains the ‘lost years’, when no-one really knows what Shakespeare was up to, and cleverly puts the plays in the context of Shakespeare’s life and times. There are retellings in a sort of comic-strip of some of the most important plays – Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet – while comic-strip style speech bubbles throughout let readers hear Shakespeare’s words and world. Children can read this book in so many different ways, and Simon Callow, quoted on the cover, is right when he says this is a perfect introduction to the real Shakespeare.
The lyrical text gives an emotional insight into the world of the woolly mammoths and is accompanied by an illustrative fact strip giving more information on how we know about the lives of Mammoths today, taken from the very latest Mammoth findings. This book also includes a useful glossary and geological time line.
Follow the amazing dramatic life of a theatrical icon, vividly described in words and pictures. With lively graphic-novel descriptions of many of Shakespeare's most famous plays, including A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Henry V, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and The Tempest, and drawing on the latest biographical research, this is the perfect introduction for children to the life and works of William Shakespeare. Endorsed by Simon Callow, Shakespearean actor and biographer: "I can't think of a book more likely than this enchantingly illustrated tome to connect young people to the greatest, most exciting, most human, most surprising writer of them all. A great achievement."
January 2014 Book of the Month The most famous band in history is brought to life in this illustrated history of their life and times. The stories of the ‘fab four’ as schoolboys from the years before they met through how they got together and set up their band to dealing with fame, fortune and millions and millions of screaming fans are told in words and pictures evoking the mood of the time – albeit making it look a very long time ago indeed! Full of facts and fun to browse this also captures the mood of the time and exceptional impact The Beatles made on teenage life.
April 2013 Non-Fiction Book of the Month The incredible story of the building of the mighty Stonehenge is brought to life in the action-packed illustrations to this book. How such a feat was achieved without the help of any technology has always been a cause of wonder. Here, the story of how the stones were dragged for many miles, how they were heaved into position and how they were cleverly fitted together so that the building would last, is visually re-enacted while the history of the time and what we know about how man managed 5,000 years ago is explained in the text and accompanying speech bubbles.
