TOWNER, Rob (text) St Dominic’ Centre for Hearing Impaired Children (illus.) Animal Friends: Floating Orange Cubes Self Pub, 2013 189pp $12.95 pbk ISBN 9780992316105
Rob Towner is a teacher at a centre for hearing-impaired children, some of whom have illustrated this story. The characters are birds and insects that are antagonistic to each other, and the story begins in 2016, but the bulk of it is set in 1956, and there is a coda again in 2016. With its messages of cooperation, trust and self-sacrifice it is a moral tale, and whilst the text is overlong, it does possess a certain charm. JG