In essence this is a simple-words-and-pictures book, but the pictures are done by some of the greatest artists in history. For the very young it is full of familiar everyday objects and concepts, for the slightly older the pictures become stories and older children are encouraged to ask about the context in which the illustrations were painted. The book includes more than 110 great works of art from all over the world, with each painting illustrating the first word of a concept, a short biography of each artist and each picture is labelled with title, date, artist and provenance. Lucy Micklethwait is the co-author of “The Dictionary of British Book Illustrators” which was the winner of the Library Association’s McGolvin Medal for the outstanding reference book for the year.