Animotion Books

You have probably seen the book Gallop! which is a scanimation book. The following books share a similar concept in bringing illustrations to life for children. Applying animotion to each page, these books are a true delight to the eye and to the imagination (for young and old alike)! All three of the following books are published by Accord Publishing and each is unique in its own right.

Bee & Me is written by Elle J. McGuinness shares a similar story line to the Bee Movie (although I can’t find that the two are related in the least) so it might have a familiar ring to a few of you. In this story we meet a bumble bee who is chased by a dog inside of a house where she becomes trapped. The boy inside the house answers the bee’s cry for help to be let back out into the world. The bee argues that if it is not released from the home, she will not be able to pollinate and the result of that would be the death of all plants everywhere. After finding out what bees do, the boy is no longer afraid of the little winged creature and releases it into the wild. In this book just about every other page plays hosts to some AniMotion so that you are always guessing what you will see that will be moving next.

Lights Out, Night’s Out is our favorite of the three books and the newest release in this series. In this book, nighttime has fallen on the forest and owls are flying, hedgehogs are rolling into their logs to slumber the night away and wolves are howling. This book is told in rhyme.

“From the bushes,
Black eyes peek.
Dart about
And off they sneak.

Raccoon robbers
Shun the light,
Gather dusk
And steal the night.”

We liked this particular book because of the wide variety of animals contained within, as well as the frequent use of animotion to show fireflies blinking and spiders dangling from their webs. At the back of the book there is a page spread of information on the various nocturnal creatures that are featured within this book. This one is just plain interesting and fun! We really loved it!

Being a fan of Nemo we’re up for anything featuring sea creatures. Baby Turtle’s Tale was right up our alley as we saw baby turtle hatch from his shell and take his first tumbling motion into the waves. Like Bee & Me, this book focuses on the adventures of one animal in particular, following turtles birth and its journey into the sea. Various animals are seen moving about the pages but the turtle is the main character. It’s a very cute book and if you and your child are sea lovin’ people, you will very much enjoy this title.

All of these books are fun in their individual ways. Even though the novelty of them is the same, the animotions are used in clever and creative ways for each book making these a fun edition to any library. I can assure you that they are a fun edition to our home library. These books would make awesome Christmas or birthday presents because they are so unique and new in the way that they feature illustrations and tell stories. Mark these down as a fun idea!

Carrie comes by her book obsession honestly, having descended from a long line of bibliophiles. She blogs about books regularly at Reading to Know.