A Balloon for a Blunderbuss

This lovingly restored 1960s children's classic takes design lovers of all ages on a fantastic journey via an imaginative and entertaining series of trades and swaps. The trades start small, with a tiny butterfly, and end up including absolutely everything in the world, from straw hats to the stars in the sky. A Balloon for a Blunderbuss is a beautifully woven sequence of entertaining text by Alastair Reid and bold illustrations by Bob Gill. It will delight the youngest and oldest of readers.

After working as a freelance illustrator and designer in New York, Bob Gill (b. 1931) moved to London in 1960, where he joined Alan Fletcher and Colin Forbes to create a design agency that became the precursor of Pentagram. He resumed his freelance career as an illustrator, designer, teacher, filmmaker, and author of children's books in 1967, and returned to New York in 1975. His clients include Pirelli, Universal Pictures, Nestlé, and the United Nations, and he has written a number of books on graphic design.

Alastair Reid (b. 1926) is a poet and scholar of South American literature from Galloway in Scotland. He has lived in Europe, the United States, and Central and South America, working as a poet, translator, staff writer, and South American editor of The New Yorker.