Here Comes Frankie!

Name: William Joseph
Price range: $

by Tim Hopgood

Interest age: 4 to 6
Reading age: 5+

Published by Macmillan Children's Books, 2015

Picture books

About this book

Describing music using words is tricky - but by adding pictures, Tim Hopgood creates musical magic on the page.

Ellington Avenue where Frankie lives is very quiet. Frankie's parents are very quiet, as are the cat, the dog and the clock. But one day Frankie returns home with a trumpet.

At first all he manages is dirty dishwater, pickled onions and brownness. But as he improves, so do the colours and smells until 'beautiful patterns of sound floated through the house' and the sound of sunshine comes to Ellington Street.

This vibrant celebration of synaesthesia uses colours, images and texture to stimulate sight, smell and touch, which then in some unfathomable way conjures a sense of sound; even the endpapers are symphonies in the colour of noise. Fantastic!

About the author

Tim Hopgood lives with his wife and cats in North Yorkshire. He is a graduate of Kingston University and worked for 20 years as a graphic design and freelance illustration. Tim's first book, Our Big Blue Sofa, was published in 2006 and in 2008 he was the winner of the Best Emerging Illustrator Award at the Book Trust Early Years Awards.