Toys Talking
Leanne Shapton
second hand
Penguins, panda bears, stuffed dogs and cuddly cats reflect on jokes, consider the weather, and long for tomorrow to come.
I love it completely. Toys Talking is the only book which both I and my eleven-month-old daughter agree is a masterpiece — she thinks it is a delightful series of candy-colored toy portraits; I think it is unbearably poignant. A children's book for adults, or an adult book for children! Nothing else I know of more accurately describes the strange mêlée of feelings that we call, for convenience, a family - Adam Thirlwell
Leanne Shapton is a Canadian author, artist and publisher based in New York City. She is currently the art editor at The New York Review of Books. She is also the co-founder, with photographer Jason Fulford, of J&L Books, an internationally-distributed not-for-profit imprint specialising in art and photography books. She has written and illustrated 12 books, her autobiography Swimming Studies won the 2012 National Book Critic's Circle Award and was long listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year. Toys Talking is her only children's book.