KBN welcomes Linda Lee. And the fun of reading books you sometimes just have to write yourself.

This week we are pleased to welcome Linda Lee as a contributing KBN author/illustrator.

        An extraordinary artist living in Amsterdam, her work can be  charmingly innocent one moment – as in her new book for KBN for which the story was lost, apparently, because her dog ate it – and sharply witty and complex the next as in her sophisticated visual commentaries appearing in the euro design magazine DZone. 
        Linda Lee has illustrated literally hundreds of picture books, educational books, magazines, games, puzzles, and much more. A visit to her website at www.lindalee.nl offers a delightful exploration of the visually unexpected.  
         Interactive reception concepts are also an important focus of the artist. Recently, for example, she developed a series of nursery paintings which children can not only observe, but touch and feel as well. Now, with The Metal Detector, she brings KBN readers a fresh interactive children’s story.
        Like a silent movie, The Metal Detector can be read perfectly well without text. But with the help of limited metatext the work also invites young readers  to tell the story they observe in the cinematic flow of images in words, which of course are their own words. Children are encouraged, further, to inscribe the story they create directly into the book, which becomes a unique interactive work actually written by its readers.

Parents will treasure this book. And teachers are provided with more classroom suggestions in our KBN Teacher Talk review.