Thérèse Neelands

by Andrea Beaty Illustrated by David Roberts

Somewhere along the line of my buying books life, (it’s a jam-packed line, and although I think libraries are an excellent idea and a generous institution, I’m afraid I don’t use them much) I began collecting children’s books.

I found this one at Umbra the other day. At first glimpse, I saw the graph paper on the cover and the word ‘Architect’ and thought it’d be a great gift for Andrew. Then I shuffled through the pages and thought it’d be a great gift for me.

(Absolutely click on the images to get a better look)

This book is totally for the cool kids and cool parents. Iggy (Ignacious) is an intelligent kid who shows architectural genius at the age of two. His two loving parents (totally hip and most likely designers in their cool clothes and designer house) recognize his passion and support his antics.

Clearly too smart for the grade two’s and un-supported by his teacher, Iggy gets reprimanded for building castles out of chalk.

But being the bright, creative child he is, he waves off discouragement, and saves the day by hatching up a plan to save his teacher from a catastrophe.

In the end, Miss Greer the teacher, realizes “…there are worse things to do when you’re in grade two, than to spend your time building a dream” (and Iggy becomes a guest speaker in grade two, in his t-shirt and sneakers, talking of buildings in Rome and Quebec).

It’s a fantastically positive book, although c’mon, it’s really the illustrations that make me totally jealous I didn’t do something like this myself.

(and yes, Andrew’s gift sits very nicely on my desk)