Book review: 'Ink' encourages children to think of books as best friends

Children's books can be about anything from fantastical creatures in magical dreamscapes to fox families cunningly outwitting their hunters.

But Ingid Mennen and her daughter Irene Berg have come up with something novel in storytelling for children - a book about books themselves.

In their beautifully illustrated book, Ink, a young girl who's becoming aware of the wonder of words, books and reading for the first time creates a companion from her parents' newspaper by drawing the outline of her body onto the page.

The girl, Tinka, calls her new ''friend" Ink and introduces her to all her favourite story books, because "a book is like a friend, with the best stories to tell".

Mennen says that book is based on her own childhood experiences, and her experience as a writer.

''Writing is about making something out of nothing," she says. ''I was eager to learn to read and remember being disappointed that I couldn't sit in my father's arms and read his newspaper with him."

Mennen believes that the world becomes bigger when you learn to read.

''You cry and laugh with the character, and experience everything they do. It's the most sophisticated and yet simple way to learn empathy," she says.

Berg, who always wanted to be an artist but ended up studying music, says that her mother's story really captured her imagination.

Her drawings are all done with black pencil and paint, and each letter of the story was created by hand.

''We did a lot of research into books and printing. It's evident when you look closely at the detail in the drawings - the reference to Gutenberg's printing press, for instance."

She says the drawings pay homage to Victorian books - simple, accessible to children and very inky.

The collaborators say that literacy is the major message of the book.

''Reading provides access to the world," they say. ''Books light your path. Being unable to read is a kind of blindness."

• This article was originally published in The Times.