Dazzle Ships: World War I and the Art of Confusion

This is supposed to be a children’s book—and it is, and a wonderful one at that. But it’s much more because it’s also a book that people of any age will learn from and simply delight in. I own two copies at the moment, but will soon be ordering more since I would like to share this with young relatives and grown-up friends who appreciate color, pattern and optical intrigue. I am grateful to the author, who distilled a complex, little-known theme into a fluent and rousing account; and to the illustrator, whose depictions of dazzle-camouflaged ships are as memorable as the ships themselves.

This book was included on our Virginia Reader’s Choice list. Unfortunately, with the closure of schools, my daughter didn’t get to check it out so we ordered it to read at home. Beautiful book. We enjoyed the history lesson.

Nonfiction picture book about how the UK painted their supply ships with a unique camouflage to prevent them from being sunk by U-boats. Interesting.

Well done - I'm glad I ordered it.

Artwork is pretty, but this is hardly a children's book. Text is written at a middle school level or above. It also has very few pictures of ships or any details about the science or engineering going into the paint scheme design process.

The way the illustrator makes the author's story come alive is remarkable. Fantastic discussion of seemingly "crazy ideas" that may or not work.

Chris Barton is fantastic, and Dazzle Ships most definitely did not disappoint. Love the illustrations and the purpose behind this book.

Great art work

BEWARE - THIS IS A BOOK REALLY ONLY SUITABLE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN. The earlier review posted on Amazon by John Plowright was somewhat misleading and appears to treat the book as an authoritative work - although he does eventually make passing reference to its suitability for children at the very bottom of his lengthy first paragraph. However, it is actually a book suitable ONLY for very young children, on the subject of dazzle-painting of ships during the First World War. To be fair, the reading level for the book is shown as '4-8 years' in the Amazon product information (update: now shown as ‘7-10 years’) - but when buying books on the Amazon website, I don't generally check their reading level. Usually, it’s pretty obvious but I'll be sure to do so in future. Unfortunately, prior to ordering this book, I judged it by its cover and its 'product description', which (at the time I bought it) gave no real indication of its target audience.The book's concept seems to have been one of trying to get very young kids interested in that period of history (perhaps seen as being 'boring' because most photographs of that period are in black & white) by engaging them via the use throughout of brightly-coloured interpretive illustrations / cartoons and simplistic minimal text. Indeed, Mr Plowright's review contains almost as much text as the book itself.I bought this from the Book Depository (because, like Amazon themselves, they generally send their items in stout cardboard packaging) - but although the seller has agreed to accept return of the item, they have made no provision for covering the cost of my doing so, by post or otherwise.

A beautiful and interesting book ! Great illustrations and colors, and the story is nice : i didn't know this part of history of ww1.