We’ve been incredibly pleased with the coverage Just Right has received in Christmas round-ups.
The Scotsman writes:
“A heartwarming Christmas story […] The text has some repeated phrases with which children will be joining in by the end. The illustrations by Rosalind Beardshaw create a warm glow and have a fairy-tale quality to them. I especially love the final double-page spread which sees the givers, the recipients and all the soft red Chrismassy presents skating on the pond.”
Nicolette Jones writes for The Sunday Times
“A cheerful wintry tale with wide appeal in which a piece of red material makes Christmas presents for everyone from a princess to a mouse.”
In the The Sunday Telegraph, Dinah Hall writes:
“It’s hard to find a Christmas book that’s about giving without coming across all preachy (you can’t fool kids: Christmas is about receiving) but Just Right by Birdie Black and Rosalind Beardshaw delivers a warm glow with its waste-not-want-not message. The story follows a roll of cloth – “so red and soft and Christmassy” – as it makes a cloak for a princess with the leftover scraps passing down a human/animal hierarchy until it becomes a scarf for a mouse.”
And finally, Stephen Romei for The Australian writes:
“This vibrant English picture book was my pick of the bunch […] It’s Christmas Eve in a wintry kingdom and the king, strolling in the market, buys a beautiful roll of red cloth that’s ‘just right for a grand cloak for the princess’. The princess gets her lovely cloak but there’s lots of cloth left over, which is chucked out and found by a kitchen maid, who thinks the offcuts will make a perfect jacket for her mother. And so it goes, with various people and creatures delightedly picking up other’s scraps, until the end of the chain when a little mouse receives a snazzy red scarf from his mum. Everyone is happy and it’s ‘just how Christmas should feel’.”
