This Thing Called Life

by Christian Borstlap

Overview

From the smallest specks of life to the largest creatures, this engaging picture book shows the many shapes and forms life takes all around us.

What is life? It's constantly moving, growing, reproducing, and dying. It's happening now, all the time, and it's everywhere around us. From little helicopter seed pods that float through the air to blue whales in the ocean, the world is filled with all different types of odd and familiar kinds of life. This whimsical picture book helps young readers see the connections between all living things. Author and illustrator Christian Borstlap's furry, feathery, smooth, and spiky creatures crawl, eat, growl, fly, and interact with one another. While most of his creations are imaginary animals, they all depict real things that organisms must do to survive and thrive. Bold and quirky illustrations tug at kids' imaginations and help demonstrate complex concepts that can be hard to put into words. The book leaves lots of room for discussion and for new discoveries with each reading.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783791374437
Publisher:	Prestel Publishing
Publication date:	10/06/2020
Pages:	56
Product dimensions:	8.63(w) x 11.31(h) x 0.48(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

CHRISTIAN BORSTLAP is an illustrator, designer, art director, and founder of Part of a Bigger Plan, a creative agency whose clients include Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Apple, Vogue, Rijksmuseum, and many others. This is his first picture book.

Editorial Reviews

11/02/2020

Designer Borstlap adds snorts and giggles to this meditation on life by populating its spreads with lumpy, wonderfully bizarre flora and fauna. “Long, long ago,” he starts grandly, “a medley of stardust, gases, ice meteors, sunlight, and many other things we don’t understand created...// ...life.” And what life! Chubby plants with fat, furred protuberances; two-legged eyes and mouths; and more throng together in a warm, fertile gathering. Life’s about a lot of things: “It’s about reproducing,” Borstlap says, next to a football-shaped bird and its football-shaped egg. “It’s also about moving,” he continues, as a lithe creature that’s all legs and head sprints across the page, “and feeling,” personified by a blobby pink creature with soft, handlike tentacles. “Here’s the thing,” Borstlap concludes in a warm, confiding tone. “You can’t do life alone.” Another page turn leads to a primeval crowd. “Life is something we do together.” He stops there, a little abruptly, but it’s easy to imagine continuing the conversation, spurred on by this jaunty, unsanctimonious romp. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

11/01/2020

PreS-Gr 3—Borstlap, well known in the art community, ponders the meaning of life in his debut picture book. The text, which is around 56 pages, seems too long for a children's picture book, but the artwork is plentiful and there are few words. Kids don't have to dwell on heavy philosophical concepts or they can choose to stop and consider the hidden message behind the simple wording. The text begins with life evolving from stardust then discusses how life is about reproducing, perceiving, breathing, moving, feeling, giving, and taking. Overall, life is unpredictable. Ideas such as how we can't "do life alone" may seem simple and straightforward but there is much to think about. There are colorful, soft-toned, fuzzy sketches of animals and plants. Borstlap seems to be telling the reader to slow down and think deeper about our place in the universe. Although the book is not text heavy, it seems unlikely that it will fully engage the target audience. This title could serve as a coffee table book for adults who wish to thoughtfully contemplate the meaning of life. VERDICT Children might find the illustrations amusing, but they will not understand the complexity of the written message. Purchase if you have additional funds.—Sandra Welzenbach, Villarreal Elem. Sch., San Antonio

School Library Journal

2020-09-01
A cast of lumpish imaginary figures demonstrate life’s ins, outs, and necessities.

Though he ends in a good place, in getting there Borstlap takes a rather jaundiced view of what life is all about. “Long, long ago, before little white wires started growing out of our ears…” he begins, text placed over an earbud-wearing blob intent on a small handheld screen. He goes on to recount how life arose from components “we don’t understand” before going on to reproduce, perceive, breathe, move, and, mainly, survive by either fighting or running. Occasionally he adopts a puckish tone—showing “giving” and “taking” in action with a flower growing from the poop of one animal and then being eaten by another (or perhaps the same one)—on the way to observing that life is unpredictable except for the part about how it all ends and, finally, the cogent insight that we can’t go it alone: “All of life is connected and dependent on the rest of life.” Cynthia Rylant’s lyrical, affirmative take on the topic, Life, illustrated by Brendan Wenzel (2017), will leave readers more emotionally invested, but the point here is well enough taken. The art in this wry French import has the cinematic air of an animated short, with a mix of clip art–style images and generic claylike organisms with tiny, comically wide eyes and stippled modeling suspended against monochrome backdrops.

Glib—but not entirely off the mark. (Picture book. 6-9)

Kirkus Reviews