All Fall Down

by Brian Wildsmith

The bee is on the butterfly. The butterfly is on the bird. The bird is on the seal. But the seal is on a ball...

16 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Brian Wildsmith (1930-2016) was raised in a small mining village in Yorkshire, England, where, he says, "Everything was grey. There wasn't any colour. It was all up to my imagination. I had to draw in my head..."

He won a scholarship to the Slade School of Fine Art where he studied for three years. For a while he taught music at the Royal Military School of Music, but then gave it up so that he could paint full time.

He has deservedly earned a reputation as one of the greatest living children's illustrators. In 1962, he published his first children's book, ABC, for which he was awarded the Kate Greenaway Medal, Britain's equivalent to the Caldecott Medal. He was also a runner up for this medal for The Owl and the Woodpecker.

Wildsmith has said: "I believe that beautiful picture books are vitally important in subconsciously forming a child's visual appreciation, which will bear fruit in later life."

In 1994, the Brian Wildsmith Art Museum was established in Izukogen, a town south of Tokyo, Japan. Almost one and a half million people visited a traveling exhibition of his work in 2005. Eight hundred of his paintings are on loan to the museum.

Brian is married, has four children, and currently lives in the south of France.

— Source

Reviews

[Melki]

Let's pile creature on creature until gravity kicks in.

For fans of animal stacking and Brian Wildsmith completists only.

[Amy]

This is a cute, VERY SIMPLE book. I had ds guess what sort of animal each animal was balanced on. At the end, they all fell down!