New and Notable!

EXTRA YARN
Barnett, Mac (Author), Klassen, Jon (Illustrator)
This picture book is certain to spark the imagination of every child who comes upon it, and what could be better than that? Annabelle lives in a black-and-white world, where everything is drab, drab, drab. So imagine her surprise when she finds a box filled with yarn of every color. Armed with the yarn and knitting needles, she makes herself a sweater, but when she finishes, she finds that she has extra yarn left over. After knitting a sweater for her dog, her classmates, and various (hilariously unsurprised) bunnies and bears, she still has extra yarn. So, Annabelle turns her attention to things that don’t usually wear wool cozies: houses and cars and mailboxes. Soon an evil archduke with a sinister mustache “who was very fond of clothes” hears about the magic box of never-ending yarn, and he wants it for his own. Reading like a droll fairy tale, this Barnett-Klassen collaboration is both seamless and magical. The spare, elegant text and art are also infused with plenty of deadpan humor. Klassen (I Want My Hat Back, 2011) uses ink, gouache, and digital illustration to fashion Annabelle’s world out of geometric shapes, set against dark, saturated pages, and against white as the town comes to colorful, stitched life. Quirky and wonderful, this story quietly celebrates a child’s ingenuity and her ability to change the world around her.

Reminds me of Yarn Bombing:

"The sight of neatly wrapped balls of wool and the phrase knit one, pearl one conventionally conjures up images of little old ladies lovingly creating cardigans and bootees, but the newly coined concept of yarn bombing could change all that …

There's a new craze sweeping cities all over the world, in which knitters have had the inspiration to knit for things rather than people. Conventionally at least, knitting is associated with creating things that will keep people warm – scarves, gloves, bobble hats and good old woolly jumpers. But it seems that there's a new craze sweeping cities all over the world, in which knitters have had the inspiration to knit for things rather than people. Imagine a lamp post with a scarf wrapped around it, or a UK telephone box with its own 'cosy' cover? From Perth and Michigan to London and Belfast, it's been possible in recent times to see splashes of artistic creativity such as these, whose wooliness and sudden, unsolicited appearance has inspired the term yarn bombing. If you're finding it difficult to imagine what they look like, then check out this link which has some great examples – my own personal favourite is the tree!"