Hannah and the Violin

Satoshi Kitamura has both written and illustrated over 20 picture books, and illustrated many more texts including poetry. He has won awards such as the Mother Goose Award, Silver Award for the Smarties Prize, and the National Art Library Illustrations Award, and more recently the Sankei Book Award, a shortlisting for the Queen's Knickers Award and several Carnegie nominations. After a stay of many years in London, Satoshi now lives and works in Japan.

‘The story is rich with the elements that make Satoshi Kitamura’s books such a pleasure to read and to share – imagination is given full rein but paired with a sophisticated comic simplicity. An equally simple but expressive range of gesture and expression bring the characters to life, while luscious landscapes and scenes leave readers visually enriched. A book to capture a child’s imagination and encourage it to soar.’ 5/5 starsBooks for Keeps‘It’s a beautiful exploration of how music feels and what senses are involved; the colour or shape a song makes us think of and how it affects us emotionally.’Children's Books Ireland'This celebration of play and invention takes us all soaring with Hannah into a limitless sky. The opportunities it opens for talking, wondering and creating are huge.'Love Reading - book of the month‘Through words, pictures and youthful playfulness, little Hannah’s leaf violin shows us that, with a little imagination, we can conjure up music and rhythm from something as simple as the sounds of insects and birds. And when the ‘music’ takes us, we can dance, sing, share our joy with others, and be transported to new worlds. A creative masterpiece!’LANCASHIRE EVENING POST'Hannah and the Violin has endless possibilities in the classroom, encouraging an interest in music, the various instruments and the ‘music’ available to us in our environment. It also serves as a reminder of the importance of imaginative play.'A Library Lady