A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Ball For Daisy is a potent, poetical picture book. Told in vivid, brilliant hues of thick luscious colour, it tells the story of a dog who loses her ball.

It’s a slight story, yes, but simple? No. Not really.

A Ball for Daisy is wordless but Raschka conveys so much through his bold thick usage of lines and deceptively relaxed imagery. Daisy herself is a shaggy dog of a thousand breeds but she sings on these pages. Every image involving her is beautifully done; there’s just so much – dog – here.

There’s one double page spread with Daisy on a sofa and all it does is show her in different positions before being eventually comforted by her owner. It’s done so skilfully though that with what is essentially a fixed frame we witness the passing of time through the subtle use of color wash behind the sofas and we can almost feel the hours bleeding into each other through the continuous use of line of the ‘stacked’ sofas. I won’t put a picture up of it as it’s a fairly pivotal moment and I don’t want to spoil the joy for you.

It’s books like these that make picture books an artform. There’s so much going on here and at no point do we slip into overt moralising or didacticism. It’s just the story of a dog and her ball but it’s also about friendship and love with a very gorgeous little twist at the end that made me smile from ear to ear.

I loved this. So much.

I just want a dog now.
View all my reviews