Kathy Weeks (text) and Aleksei Bitskoff (illustrator), What’s New, Harper Drew?, Hachette Australia, February 2022, 272 pp., RRP $16.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781444961775
Harper Drew’s family think they’re quite normal, which is why she decides to start a diary to record what they get up to so she can prove to the world just how completely beyond normal they are! We witness first hand her brother’s obsession with his hair, her mother’s addiction to supermarkets and her film producer uncle’s increasingly bizarre behaviour, while not actually ever making any films.
Harper is also desperate to be invited to the ever-popular Masie’s summer glamping party, if only she can survive her family’s annual trip to France, which is bound to involve even more mayhem if every other trip is anything to go by. Written in a diary format, Harper catalogues not only her family disasters but the ingenious attempts by her and her friends to raise money for a stairlift at school for her best friend Edward, but sadly both Edward and the fundraising get far less attention than other characters and elements of the story.
Aleksie Bitskoff’s illustrations of the family tree at the beginning of the book are very fun and get the book off to a great start but curiously, other illustrations only appear on the first 17 pages. However, this review is based on an uncorrected proof copy, so hopefully that will change in the final print.
Reviewed by Deborah Abela
