Out today - the stunning "Dandelion's Dream" by Yoko Tanaka (Walker Books)

Ooh now this one's definitely caught our eye, and we've been marvelling at the gorgeous atmosphere of it since it first made its way through our letterbox.

"Dandelion's Dream" by Yoko Tanaka is a wordless picture book that begins with an implied question...

"What would you do if you only had one day to live?"

Pretty huge philosophical stuff, you'll agree but Yoko has blissfully tapped into a day in the life of a dandy lion - well a Dandelion, who is determined to make the very best use of 24 hours embarking on an adventure of imagination, discovery and sheer joyfulness at the beauty of the world.

The book is amazing to look at, picked out mostly in grey hues but with gorgeous contrasting splashes of yellow and other colours to help bring the pages to life and feed them with sunshiney energy.

Dandelion's day is quite something, and the most fun with this book is hearing children interpret each page spread in their own unique way, anticipating Lion's feelings and thoughts as the story unwinds, and of course using the power of the wordless format to build their own stories within the construct of this vibrant and amazing book world.

Let the train take the strain!

There were times when this reminded us both of Chris Van Allsburg's amazing books, making great use of tone and greyscale in the illustrations that almost feel like they can leap off the page into your life.

Sum this book up in a sentence: Quite something this, one of the most original picture books we've seen in a while, and a blissful dreamscape to spend a lot longer than a single day in, as kids are absolutely bound to demand this one again and again.

"Dandelion's Dream" by Yoko Tanaka is out today, published by Walker Books (kindly supplied for review).