The story starts off with her not spending much time with her father and being lonely and showing a small sense of neglect in the story with the bland colours. The truly masterful part of this illustration is that the light coming out of the television turns the pattern on the wallpaper into butterflies. I think Anothy Browne has explored a number of issues and anxieties experienced by most children in a imaginative, enchanting and magical way in this book- and the fact that this is all done within 30 pages is an absolute triumph. Nice, discreet things to discover within the images too; the gorilla Mona Lisa, Gorilla lamp, the banana in dads back pocket. According to CCSU, some runners-up through 2002 up were Commended (from 1959) or Highly Commended (from 1974).

Anthony Browne, a Hans Christian Andersen Medalist, is the author-illustrator of many acclaimed books for children, including Silly Billy and Little Beauty. He was once asked to present a children's programme, whilst sitting in a cage of gorillas, and despite being badly bitten by one of them he completed the interview before being taken to hospital. Hannah is disappointed when she receives a toy gorilla for her birthday instead of a real one, however something magical happens and her toy gorilla comes to life taking her on an adventure through the night. This was always one of my favourite books as a young reader and probably even before I could read it myself!

This emotive and endearing book tells the humbling story of Hannah, a little girl, who wants nothing more but to spend quality time with her very busy father.

Hannah’s favourite animals in the whole world are gorillas; she reads about them, watches programmes about them, and draws pictures of them. Hannah spends all of her time reading gorilla books, watching gorilla TV shows, and drawing gorilla pictures. Unfortunately, her hard-working and rather distant father never seemed to have the time to take her to the zoo to see them live.The posters in her room; the bedside lamp, the box of cereal, are all adorned with her favourite animal. There is so much you can do with this text looking at book and picture codes, from the illustrations and positioning of the characters looking at perspective and hierarchy. The young readers are left with the message that even when they feel that their caregivers don’t care about them, parents actually do love them, no matter what. At first when reading this book, I was saddened by the nature of Hannah and her father's relationship and the impact it was having on her however the ending was a heart-warming surprise where Hannah gets what she really wanted all along, love and attention from her father!

There are some really interesting images in the book which show the feelings of the child and the way there are some lines in the images is to show upset and it really draws in the reader to understand and acknowledge how the child is feeling. What I really liked about this book that was the way in which the child was imagining more and more to help herself with being lonely and the way in which the colours are used to show how the characters are feeling within the book such as the Beginning the colours are dark and bland and there are stripes showing the feelings and emotions then as the story goes on it shows that the child is becoming more cheerful as the colours are brightening up and she is very happy. The illustrations here are sublime; there's real heart in them and they are incredibly lifelike in a way that's almost eerie. The class would compare the gorilla and the dad, drawing attention to the similar clothes and facial hair in the pictures. I think this story would be suitable for any age, older readers could explore the themes of the text in more detail, but younger readers could also appreciate this book and discuss their own ideas/feelings.e. discussing Hannah’s emotions (there is a wide range throughout the text), whether animals should be kept in the zoo (Hannah says she feels “sad” when visiting the zoo) and the depiction of a single parent family (Hannah’s mum is absent from the story). Hannah’s dad is always too busy to take her to the zoo, so on her birthday, Hannah decides to ask for a gorilla of her own. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. Children learn about the structure and vocabulary of recounts first by listening to, reading and writing fictional recounts.