Fun in the sun, then off to bed.
One day on a mountain meadow, told in a few rhyming lines. The pictures do most of the talking: painterly grass and hills, flat hand-coloured characters, and words drawn straight into the sky.
“three little yaks loved to play,
they had fun in the sun all day.”
The lettering curves along the sky and tucks into the grass, so the words feel like part of the picture rather than a block of text laid on top.
Fuzzy, round and a little bit sleepy.
The yaks are soft boxes of fur with big eyes and tiny legs: simple enough for a toddler to recognise on every page. Each one gets its own colour, so they can be told apart even in a pile.
Heavy eyelids and a shaggy fringe: the sleepy one.
A square head and wide, round eyes: the curious one.
Front and side views are drawn between the same guide lines, so each yak keeps its size and shape from one page to the next.
The girl who looks after the yaks.
Sketched in blue pencil next to a height chart, with poses for pointing, thinking and calling the herd home. The chart keeps her the right size beside the yaks on every spread.
From sunny play to sleepy eyes.
The whole book is one day, from a bright afternoon on the meadow to a starry night by the fire. Every page was planned as a pencil thumbnail first, with a box marked for the words, so text and picture were placed together from the start.
