Chris Van Dusen's "If I Built a House" showcases the imagination of a brilliant kid who dreams up and draws his perfect house.
It's an absolutely amazing place with an automated kitchen (which serves up the most delicious looking food you've ever seen in a children's book - those crinkly fries and pizzas are enough to make your stomach grumble), a bouncy living room with built in trampolines - but the best is saved till later when the kid reveals his flying room, a vast aquarium and a truly stunning racetrack room.
The book bounces along in rhyme and though some of the rhymes do feel a bit 'forced' (using the phrase "well that's something new" a few too many times) you don't really notice purely because this is an absolute feast for the eyeballs and you're left at the end wishing you had the money to build a place like that.
A gigantic road monster, again complete with its own robotic food conveyor (again Chris Van Dusen really manages to make your tummy rumble), an automated pilot (long before the days of driver automation became mainstream) and the ability to fly and go underwater.
It's enough to make James Bond weep with envy.
Both books are utterly brilliant, packed with amazing illustrative details and the sort of art work you'd happily pin on your wall (and his characters are just as much fun as his weird inventions). A glimpse of the future like this? Oh we'd buy that for a dollar!
Original Review Links:
"If I Built a House" by Chris Van Dusen (Chronicle)
ReadItDaddy's Book of the Week - Week ending 17th May 2013 - "If I Built A Car" by Chris Van Dusen (Penguin USA)