Title: The Lost Book
Author: Margarita Surnaite
Illustration: Margarita Surnaite
Publisher: Andersen Press
Genre: Children’s picture book
Book format: Paperback
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Description: All rabbits like books, except for Henry…Until he discovers The Lost Book.

*Free copy provided by publisher for review…

Review:  I really enjoyed this story in fact I could have done with reading this book when I was younger! Henry lives in Rabbit Town with his parents and sisters. While everyone in Rabbit Town seems to love reading books, Henry doesn’t. He doesn’t understand their appeal and would much rather play games or have an adventure, but one day when he chases after a ball he’s thrown, he finds a book, a lost book. Wondering who lost the book and going on a search to find its owner, he finds himself in a strange world, a world filled with people.

The Lost Book book page image one
©The Strawberry Post

 

The book is about A4 in size and filled with lovely illustrations and text on thick matt pages. The story is a clever one. Henry travels from his beautiful and colourful Rabbit Town into the dreary almost grey world of humans. In search for the lost book’s owner, Henry tries to get people’s attention but nobody notices him as they are too busy looking at their phones or rushing to work. He even goes so far as to end up travelling on the tube (underground), and starts to lose hope until a little girl notices him. I don’t want to spoil the whole story but it’s a clever one with the girl noticing Henry and the magic of the two together brightening up and making colourful the rest of their day. The story has a funny twist at the end too which I really enjoyed as it’s the type of twist I just love!

The illustrations are so cute and very well done. The colourful and beautiful Rabbit world is in vast contrast to the dreary grey world of the humans. The human world is grey and I love the way that the whole world is depicted as depressing due to people constantly on their phones, even the clever adverts on the underground alluding to more and more obsessive phone use. I really love the way the illustrations look and feel, and the use of colours in various parts is so clever.

This book hasn’t received the best reviews, at least not on Amazon, and I think many reviewers have missed the point. As someone who found myself put off from reading at a young age due to a bad experience, this would have been a perfect book to give me to try to make me see the magic of reading and immagination. The world of books is depicted in a colourful and bright way while in contrast a world of obsessive screen use is grey and depressing. I like the way this is shown as it does suggest that books spark the imagination and that a world of imagination and stories is so much more rewarding than simply staring at a phone (something I actually agree with). I don’t think the message of the book is confusing, it’s simply trying to get kids into books and not becoming slaves to devices which is something we’re unfortunately seeing more and more of in our world these days.

The Lost Book book page image two
©The Strawberry Post

 

Overall I really enjoyed this book and especially the twist at the end which makes us wonder what was even real and what was imagined! I have really enjoyed looking at this book as an adult and I know that even as a child I would have loved the images, story and the twist. It’s a lovely book and I’d recommend it for anyone trying to encourage their children to enjoy reading more and sparking that love of stories and the imagination.

What do you think of this book?  Do you think books spark imagination?  Do you think we’re spending too much time looking at screens in the modern world?  Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂

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