An Illustrated Year 1: On The Way Home by Jill Murphy

This year I have decided to take part in the Illustrated Year challenge hosted by An Abundance of Books.    I hope to review a picture book every month. My first review is of Jill Murphy's On The Way Home. 

Image: borders.com.au

Claire hurts her knee in the park, and goes home to tell her mum. On the way she meets different friends, and her stories of how it happened. Was she injured escaping from a wolf, snake, gorilla, dragon, space ship or witch? When she finally gets home, she tells her mum the whole story, is comforted and gets a plaster on her knee.

This is a lovely book, with a subtext of the power of imagination and story to comfort and support us in difficult times. I adore Jill Murphy's illustrations, and this is firmly set in an urban environment, with a canal, tower blocks, corner shops and garages. It could be Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff or London, but I think that any children reading it could imagine themselves bravely escaping from the story book baddies. The pages are divided almost into comic strips; it would be delightful to read to children and I expect that they would pour over the pictures themselves. I can't wait to share it with my 4 year old nephew, and hear his own stories of bravely escaping from baddies!