時間滴答滴

by Louise Greig

The second magical picture book from the author and illustrator of The Night Box.

High above the bustle of the city,
are eyes that watch, and hands that know,
it's time to pause the clock ...
and for one tiny second between tick and tock, the city stops!

Liesel notices the things that everyone else is too busy to see.

When she hears a stray whimper and watches a lonely boy on a roundabout, she decides it's time to pause the clock and lend a helping hand. While the city freezes, Liesel quietly carries out little acts of kindness and breathes colour, life and happiness back into the city.

Louise Greig's lyrical storytelling highlights the magic in everyday experiences and is accompanied by Ashling Lindsay's warm, endearing illustrations. A wonderful picture book about the importance of kindness, looking out for others and taking time to appreciate the world around you.

Louise and Ashling's debut picture book, The Night Box, has been nominated for the Kate Greenaway Award and shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, the Teach Primary Book Awards and the Klaus Flugge Prize.

Louise Greig is an award-winning poet and a children's picture book author with a unique, lyrical voice. Her childhood was filled with animals, the poems of Robert Louis Stevenson and picture books by iconic children's writers such as Margaret Wise Brown, Charlotte Zolotow, Ruth Krauss, Maurice Sendak, Astrid Lindgren and Tove Jansson. Her debut picture book for Egmont, The Night Box, has been translated into 10 languages and has been nominated for the 2018 Kate Greenaway Medal and shortlisted for the Klaus Flugge Prize, the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, the Association of Illustrators (AOI) and the Teach Primary Book Awards. Louise lives in Aberdeen and when not writing is a director of a dog rescue and re-homing organisation. The wild solitude of Scotland and the beauty of nature remain strong influences in her life.

Ashling Lindsay is an illustrator and animation director from Belfast. She was shortlisted for the AOI Illustration Awards two years running (2013 & 2014) and was also shortlisted for the AOI Serco prize for illustration (2015).

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens

36 pages, Hardcover

Published June 1, 2020

About the author

Louise Greig is a poet and children's picture book author. She lives in Aberdeen, Scotland, and when she's not busy telling stories, she is the director of a rescue home for dogs.

Reviews

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting idea for a story. A girl lives high up in the city. She notices things going wrong below, a lost teddy, a lonely child, a lost dog. She pauses the hands of the city clock and between tick and tock goes down to put these things right. A nice idea and interesting to see busy life paused.

[Mehsi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this one in Dutch, but will write a review for this book in English.

A book about time, about a city, about a little girl, but also about much more. Since I didn't really read the blurb, I hadn't expected the magical element, namely the fact that the girl can stop time.

But first we see a busy city. Things go awry from a cat in a tree, to a lost puppy, to lots of greyness. We see a girl watching it all, high in her clock-tower. And then, she flips a switch. Yes, this girl can control time. With just the flip of a switch she can start and stop time. But she doesn't abuse this power, though then again, we just see one moment of it, so who knows. :P Maybe she does use it for herself, to just get that one special limited edition bread, or maybe get first in a book signing. You never know. But back to this moment, she is ready to set some things right.

The things I mentioned she will fix, and not only that, but tons of other things, and I can say that I was just grinning madly at how sweet this girl was for all she does for this town.

I also like that there is a time limit on how long the time can be stopped. It makes it just a bit more fun and interesting. Plus you really have to plan on what you want to do, and maybe leave some things to fix themselves.

I wonder if the city people know about the girl's powers, or if they are oblivious to it all. It would be kind of interesting if they do know, or that there are a few that are in on the secret.

The art was at times quite pretty, especially when we get closer to scenes.

All in all, a magical book about time, about correcting things, and about a sweet girl with her heart in the right spot.

Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/

[Alper Çuğun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely book but written a bit too poetically for me to live translate from German to Dutch.

[Alice Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sweet book about a young girl who has the power to stop time so that she can fix everything that's wrong in her town and make a difference in other people's lives. It would really well in a year one class alongside a topic about random acts of kindness or kindness month in school where the children could do lovely things for each other.

[Tim Roast · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an artistic picture book. Look at the cover for example - the way the line of the wall meets the floor at the diagonal, the way the shadows are cast, the way the dandelion clock forms a three-quarter circle. This art style is through the book making it exciting to look at. True it could have been even more exciting if the wide cityscapes had even more people in them than they do, LS Lowry-style. but there's only so much excitement you can take.

Coupled with this is the text which I would say is also artistic being very poetic. The idea behind the story is great too, little acts of kindness that the main character does to help people out in the city "between tick and tock". There is a nice punchline too. Maybe the main character didn't need to graffiti a wall to make it colourful because it was too grey but it's happy graffiti I guess.

For me its rating is between a 4 and a 5 star.

[Mélanie (Meltinyworld) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tic -Tac ... et si le temps d'un souffle le temps s'arrêtait, que se passerait-il ?

Énorme coup de cœur pour cet album magnifiquement illustré. Il est une ode au temps qui passe et au besoin de faire attention aux petits détails. Il nous rappel de façon tendre qu'il faut prendre le temps et ne pas trop le laisser filer.

Je ne peut que vous conseiller de foncer !

[Maela_book · Rating 4 out of 5]

☆☆☆☆
𝕷𝖆 𝖕𝖊𝖙𝖎𝖙𝖊 𝖋𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖊 𝖊𝖙 𝖑𝖊 𝖙𝖊𝖒𝖕𝖘 - 𝕷𝖔𝖚𝖎𝖘𝖊 𝕲𝖗𝖊𝖎𝖌 𝖊𝖙 𝕬𝖘𝖍𝖑𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕷𝖎𝖓𝖉𝖘𝖆𝖞

A la fois douillet, emprunt de mignonnerie et sublimé par des illustrations minimalistes aux teintes automnales, cet album jeunesse vient dénoncer notre société, son rapport au temps tout en nous rappelant l’importance des petits bonheurs du quotient, du fait de prendre soin des personnes qui nous entourent et de notre environnement.

𝐿𝑖𝑠𝑒, 𝑢𝑛𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒 𝑟𝑒̂𝑣𝑒 𝑑𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑒, 𝑑𝑒 𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑡𝑒́ 𝑒𝑡 𝑑𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑖𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑒 𝑣𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒 𝑢𝑛 𝑝𝑒𝑢 𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑝 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑏𝑟𝑒 𝑒𝑡 𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑒́𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑙𝑎 𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑒. 𝑀𝑎𝑖𝑠 𝑔𝑟𝑎̂𝑐𝑒 𝑎̀ 𝑙’ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑒 𝑑𝑢 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑐ℎ𝑒́ 𝑒𝑡 𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑟 𝑑’𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑒̂𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑠, 𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑒 𝑣𝑎 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑟 𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑟𝑢𝑒𝑠 𝑑𝑢 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑟, 𝑟𝑒́𝑡𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑟 𝑙’𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑟𝑒, 𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑠 𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑓𝑖𝑛 𝑑𝑒 𝑟𝑒́𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑑𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑠, 𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑞𝑢𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑐𝑢𝑛 𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑟𝑒, 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑢 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑢𝑖𝑠 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑠. 𝑀𝑎𝑖𝑠 𝑐𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑑𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑙𝑞𝑢𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑛’𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑎𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑒 𝑒𝑡 𝑙𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠 𝑑𝑒 𝑙𝑎 𝑣𝑖𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑖𝑡 𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑒. 𝐷𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑙’𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒 𝑑𝑒 𝑠𝑎 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝐿𝑖𝑠𝑒, 𝑑’𝑢𝑛 œ𝑖𝑙 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑓, 𝑣𝑒𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑟 𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑣𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑒𝑡 𝑜𝑏𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑐𝑢𝑛 𝑑𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑣𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠.

S’éclaircissant au fil des pages pour devenir de plus en plus colorée et lumineuse, cette histoire, en apparence simple se révèle bien plus profonde qu’elle n’y parait ! Plongés au cœur d’un petit village qui soudain s’éteint pour laisser la magie opérer, nous découvrons les merveilles avec lesquelles nous vivons sans nous en apercevoir, les détails insignifiants mais merveilleux qui peuplent notre monde. En partant à la rencontre d’une multitude de personnages aux difficultés différentes, la nécessité d’ouvrir les yeux et de prendre le temps dans chacune de nos actions apparait comme une évidence. Une petite fille bienveillante nous offre un moment hors de notre temporalité, une déconnexion avec le réel et une prise de conscience subtile mais percutante.