Little Owl Lost

   I found  few pictures of  Little Owl Lost illustration on a website and I loved it right away. Then later, I learned that Little Owl Lost was printed in a small publisher in Korea first because all of the other publishers wanted to change its story except the Korean publisher.  They Kept Chris Haughton's original idea which is very interesting.

The color palette of the book is very limited. He used only about 14 colors. They are 3 similar Purple colors, 3 similar blue colors, 3 similar orange, yellow, olive green, pink, and black colors. He used unusual and unexpected colors, too. For example, the sky is olive green, the ground is deep blue, the sun is green, the trees are orange,and  Squirrel is pink. I also like he used green and blue colors for strangers, rabbit, frog and bear. So we know that they don't belong to main characters who are distinguished by purple and pink.

The character and set design is simple and graphic. The characters' innocent big eyes and exaggerated action make them funnier. For example, when the baby owl describes his mother, he does exaggerated poses and  he looks really cute. The strangers, rabbit, frog, and bear look silly because their eyes are looking at their front where readers are.

They meet bigger size animals first and then meet smaller animals as they go. I think it could have been funnier if  they meet smaller animals first and then meet bigger animals later. So, emotion could be escalating as it goes. There is not much a climax before they find Mother Owl. I like olive color  text and its simple style, however, the font looks  too futuristic to me. It reminds of me computer generated matrix fonts. I don't think it goes with the wild animal story. I am not sure if I like that they are using tea cups.  They look  like too human  all of suddenly at the end.

I like he illustrated full color spreads scenes when they are running in the forest. To contrast, he used white empty back ground for conversation scenes. The last three pages of the book uses white framing, it looks very cosy with the drinking tea scene.

I love the construction of the book using half size a piece of paper. After flipping the half size of the paper, you can see the little Owl falling from the top of the tree. This is brilliant! It looks like an animated flip book. I think this is the best part of the book! The cover page title and authors name is hand written. No wonder that the author is  graphic designer.   The ending pages are quiet and subtle and it doesn't distract main story. Little Owl Lost is smartly designed and illustrated. This is definitely one of my favourite picture book.