The Word Collector by Sonja Wimmer, a book review

I was really looking forward to reading The Word Collector by Sonja Wimmer simply because of the title. What a great title to and for any author/writer. While this is a beautifully illustrated children's picture book, my first reaction was that this must have been done by an illustrator to showcase her art.

My main reason for thinking this book may be an artist's way of getting her work in to the world is the difficulty of reading the story in the beginning of the book. If the artist was hoping the pictures would take center-stage by the weird placement and difficulty of deciphering them, this was not accomplished with me. I had to go back and look at the pictures in the beginning of the story to remember anything about them because I had to focus so intensely to discern the words and correct ordering of them. This problem does, for the most part, remedy itself a little way in to the story, thankfully.

I actually really like the story itself. It has a very good moral and is presented in a way so as not to be preachy. And the illustrations are beautiful. However, the way the story was presented in those first pages made it difficult to decipher and enjoy either. I have seen a few children's books like this and I sincerely hope it is not the way picture books are going, generally.

Have you read The Word Collector by Sonja Wimmer? What did you think of it?