Wreck this picture book by Keri Smith

Puffin, 2020. ISBN: 9780241449455.
(Age: 6+) Highly recommended. Subtitled How to make a book come to life this irreverent, funny and instructive book will be adored by its readers, seeing such a range of different words, uses and applications attributed to a book. A book this author says, only comes to life when it is being used. It is not meant to live its life sitting on a shelf, but to be taken down and used.
And the uses to which this author puts the book are fanciful and exceedingly funny. The old rules assigned to a book involves not throwing them, not being rough, not folding the pages etc. have put the book under wraps as if it it were something very precious, needing to be kept under glass. But not so. A book needs to be woken up, shaken, stirred, dressed up, played with, touched and tasted.
The whole encourages children to do all of these things: to interact with the book, to feel it, smell it, taste it and fold it. Each double page shows a different use to be made of the book, encouraging imaginative play with the book, showing in the images just what can be done. You can wear the book, or read it upside down, throw a party for the book, hide a secret message within its pages, be the storm described in the book, and hug the book.
Designed to take kids out of their comfort zones regarding books, the text and images plays with the use they usually consign to books, encouraging them to see what else can be done, how they can interact with a book, and widen their use of them.Wonderful illustrations, alive with colour and imagination, different fonts and symbols, instructions and mandates, reading like a manual and guide book cover each page, ensuring the readers will be equally enthralled following the tutorial of how to wreck a book.
Themes: Books, Reading, Humour.
Fran Knight