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Billy The Punk by Jessie Carroll

Billy the punk can only be described as severely disturbed. The author tries to show the reader that being an individual and having the appearance which you want is okay, even if it differs from the normal. However, all that this book achieves is to show that �Billy� is just impressionable, while completely missing the point about individuality. At the end of the book it shows that Billy didn�t want to be an individual but to copy what he saw as �cool�, very similar to the views taken from fashion magazines. This book should never have been distributed.

The Water Tower by Gary Crew

�The Water Tower� goes to prove that even a harmless picture book can be written for the more twisted among us. Although the book is light on story-line and often the storyline is somewhat confusing, the illustrations are exceptional. These illustrations are the obvious highlights are the illustrations with the �ending� being pretty vague.

The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman by Raymond Briggs

�The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman� is a rare book that isn�t aimed at children, but rather at adults with its portrayal of the violent and �stupid� politicians or leaders. The pictures also show sadness and the unfortunate outcomes when war occurs. With it�s underlying moral of pointlessness of war and what it does the people in the involved countries, it�s definitely for the thinker.

Unwrap the Mummy by Ian Dicks and David Hawcock

This book is not your typical picture book. In fact, it�s more a poster, with the entire thing folding out to show a diagram of a mummy with a lot of facts being shown in a way that will help children remember the information. As well as this, the information is portrayed so that children will enjoy learning about mummies. This is truly a rare book.

Dinosaur Encore by Patricia Mullins

This book has superb illustrations made from tissue paper and has won an award for being the best educational dinosaur book for children. Filled with information in an interesting and �fun� manner, this book, like �Unwrap The Mummy�, makes children want to learn while allowing them to absorb the information easily.

HELP! I�m Cracking Up! By Todd Arnold.

This book is interesting with a play on words for everyday phrases. With occurrences such as the boy hearing �can you lend me a hand� and being worried about his hands falling off and the boy being progressively more and more �cracked�, this book is truly unusual, leaving the pictures to add a lot of detail to the story.

V for Vanishing by Patricia Mullings

This is another book using tissue paper to create its images and add depth to the illustrations such as fur. With each letter of the alphabet having it�s own animal. Each image has a huge amount of detail in it, which will attract any age reader, while the alphabet is noticeable its emphasis is on the animal and the things that make it unique.

Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake

From the renowned author Roald Dahl that many people already know and identify with, this is a silly book and it�s illustrations making it very easy to see that this is a fictional book. With a lot of text on each page it is aimed at slightly older children to adults, rather than having a picture book for small children. Once again audiences will enjoy the rather warped sense of humour as is present in all Roald Dahl�s books and is recommended for all ages, from the young to the young at heart. The only requirement is a sense of humour.

�Harriet, you�ll drive me WILD!� by Mem Fox and Marla Frazee.

With the pictures not filling the pages, this book makes sure you pay attention to the pictures, focusing on what is there to make sure that you take in the details. The storyline is about a naughty child who as the story progresses does a number of �bad� things. In all the scenes the mother forgives the child, and on the next page the child continues to be �bad�. However when the mother finally gets angry the child is remorseful and agrees to be good. In my eyes this book was aimed to be for parents who want their children to �be good� by showing what happens when they are �being bad� and what happens when the parents continue to be kind.

Resident Evil 2 by Capcom:

Resident Evil 2 takes place in Raccoon City after a biological weapon called the T-Virus is spilled when the White Umbrella Company tries to take the G-Virus, a more advanced variation of the T-Virus. As a result the inhabitants are turned into living dead, their cells being re-animated but having little to no intelligence and in the process of decay. On other creatures the effects are different, ranging from gaining collective intelligence, mutation, enlargement, increased aggression, increased intelligence and things such as scales or other protection to just being impervious to pain and seemingly to damage. With two different characters with different weapons and the difficulty increasing as the game progresses, this game only really appeals to the more intelligent gamers as it takes time and patience to not run out of ammunition and solve the various puzzles. With some parts of the story being �hidden� from the player unless they actively search, this game has repeated playability with the player striving to work out the entire story as each instalment leaves some aspect hinted at and teases the player.

Last Modified 11/10/05 12:41 PM