'Its design is striking, its palette retro chic, its fonts funky' said The Age

Our featured book for January is In Just One Second, written by Argentinian Silvio Freytes and illustrated by Brazil’s Flavio Morais.

The book is the winner of Best Children’s Book category of the prestigious the Daniel Gil Design Awards. As well as having a distinctively South American poster-art feel (it’s our first book from that continent), it has an unusual plot: its entire action takes place, as the title suggests, in a single second. While this confounded one reviewer (who mistakenly thought therefore it didn’t have a plot at all), it offers kids an exciting and stimulating new way of looking at their world and at stories too.

It received a glowing review from Jo Goodman in the children’s book magazine Magpies back in July 2009. Here’s an excerpt of Jo’s perceptive appraisal:

This very stylish and intriguing picture book won the Daniel Gil Design Award for best children’s book; everything about it is striking: its style, its colour palate [sic] and its storyline … Most of the images show few details yet there is a richness and subtlety in the illustrations, which expand the narrative and encourage not only close scrutiny but speculation and prediction. This strikingly original picture book should appeal to a range of readers, and stimulate interesting discussions, in addition to increasing our awareness of the visual richness of the world in which we live.

Don’t you love it when a reviewer just gets it?

Because of the many activities the book lends itself to, we have produced special notes for teachers and parents with the help of Victorian primary school teacher Alison Lough. These are available free from our website here.

The main town square scene from 'In Just One Second'. The left and right edges of the picture can join to form a continuous streetscape.