Yuval Zommer Performance

To a bright and frosty morning, we arrived at the magnificent Warwick Arts Centre, a key venue this year in Coventry’s City of Culture 2021. We were especially excited to be welcoming outstanding illustrator and writer, Yuval Zommer to the Bookshow for the very first time.

Right on time we had lots of excited children arrive from seven different schools, all eagerly waiting to watch and listen. Yuval was compelling, he didn’t use his chair once preferring to move around on the stage and interact directly with the children, calling many up onto the stage to help with questions, displays and draw bird life. We learnt about nature, different birds names and alliteration through the titles of Yuval’s books: The Big Book of Birds, The Big Book of Bugs, The Big Book of Beasts and his most recent, The Big Book of Belonging.

How to tell a story on the page? Not just a double page spread, or a pull out page, oh no. Yuval showed us how he ingeniously managed to show the different layers deep underground in The Street Beneath My Feet and journey up into the air in The Skies Above My Eyes zooming from earth to the sky and up to the solar system beyond - with just one concertina page, 2.5 metres long! Ooohs and ahhhs of delight from the audience.

A closer look at the characteristics of the birds, the cheeky robin, the hummingbird and the sleeping pose of the flamingo, as tried out by some of the children on stage - with varying degrees of success! To finish the performance, some drawing. How to draw a bird… start with an egg of course and with the help of two lucky children, Yuval’s distinctive birds emerged from the paper. Finally, the icing on the cake, a beautiful copy of The Big Book of Birds for all the children to take home and keep. Another blooming brilliant Bookshow!