Anne-Margot Ramstein

Artists and picture-book co-creators Anne-Margot Ramstein and Matthias Arégui examine the nature of time in this boldly illustrated wordless concept book. Each before & after pair, whether on the two pages of a single two-page spread, or on the four pages of two back-to-back spreads, presents something that is transformed into something else. Thus an egg turns into a chicken, which (in a humorous reference to that old joke) in turn produces another egg. Night leads to day (and day to night, at the end of the book), acorn to tree, and a sheep to wool...

Originally published in France as Avant Après, this massive tome - although a picture-book, it is 170 pages! - is the second I have read from Ramstein and Arégui, following upon their subsequently published Inside Outside. Like that other title, Before After is an attractively illustrated concept book, one that young children will no doubt enjoy paging through. I don't know that it really needed to be as long as it was, but on the other hand, I wasn't bothered by the length. I can see this being a book to pore over, on a lazy day. Recommended to fans of the artists, to readers who enjoy wordless picture-books, and to anyone in the market for concept books that teach about the relationships between different things.… (altro)

Co-creators and artists Anne-Margot Ramstein and Matthias Arégui, who previously collaborated on Before After, join forces again in this wordless picture-book exploration of the concept of inside and outside. Each two-page spread features a vividly colorful illustration of something "inside" on the left-hand side, and something "outside" on the right. The artists play around with the contrast they are drawing, with inside scenes sometimes not being what one would expect - with the snow globe, for instance, inside and outside feel inverted - or the outside scenes revealing something humorous about the inside, as when the truck driving through a deserted landscape is revealed to be holding up a long line of cars...

Originally published in Frances as Dedans Dehors, this visually stimulating and intellectually engaging look at supposedly oppositional concepts is a pleasure to peruse. Its large dimensions - it is considerably taller than your average picture-book - make Inside Outside a volume a child would enjoy poring over. As mentioned, I found a number of the inside-outside pairs quite interesting, in unexpected ways which I greatly appreciated. The artwork is colorful and appealing, although it sometimes had a flat quality that was off-putting to me. I always found the illustrations here interesting, but there were times where I wished they had more depth to them, visually. I think it is that feeling which makes this one more of a three-and-a-half-star title, rather than a four-star one. However that may be, this is one I would recommend to fans of wordless and/or more conceptual picture-books. It isn't a story, but it is quite engaging all the same.… (altro)