Aimee McNaughton (text) Dominique Ford (illustrations), I Can’t Imagine How That Happened, Scholastic (NZ), 2014, $NZ15.99(pbk), 32pp., ISBN 978-1-77543-204-3 Winner of the Joy Cowley Award (2013), this picture book is a wonderful way to explore the trickster tale in all its variations. We all like to play tricks on each other (especially when the big and the powerful get their comeuppance) as anyone watching American Funniest Video TV show knows. When Meg and her grandpa head off for a camping adventure, the old blighter loves to play tricks. From putting a can of tuna on her fishing line whilst…
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Raymond McGrath, Have you seen a Monster?, Penguin, 24 September 2014, $16.99 (pbk) (includes CD), 32pp., ISBN 978-0-143-50599-0 Even young children can enjoy (in a scary sort of way) the idea of the monstrous! “Look out kids,” the storyteller says when they look at the front cover, “I think it is a monster. Its red and its huge. Is it coming to get us?” Well…Elliot and Emma-Jane Rose are little detectives who find all sorts of things. From freckles on Elliot’s back to “something weird and slimy and gross,” they are always searching. This time, they are “hot on the…
Hathorn, Libby, Eventual Poppy Day, HarperCollins, 1 March 2015, $17.99(pbk) $8.99 (eBook), 384pp., ISBN 9780732299514 Based on Hathorn’s own family’s experiences during World War I, in balance with the story of a present-day teenager, this novel takes the Anzac story and links it to today. Maurice and Oliver are a hundred years apart. Maurice is seventeen, living with his family on a farm, a budding artist. Oliver, his great-great-nephew, is the same age, living with his mother and Maurice’s sister, Oliver’s great-grandmother, Dorothea, in Sydney. Oliver is also an artist in the making. Maurice joins the army and is…
NORMAN, Dr Mark (text) Funny Families Black Dog Books, February 2015, $16.95(pbk), 32pp. ISBN 978 1 922179 97 5 Funny Families is the next volume in the series which began with Funny Bums in 2013. It has the same format with colour photographs of different animals on each page accompanied by a few lines of text in large typeface. Most of the photographs have been sourced from Shutterstock while the text is by Dr Mark Norman from Museum Victoria. In this title, animal families of all different types are shown. Each double-page spread discusses two examples of a different…
Chuguna, Jukuna Mona and Pat Lowe (text), Mervyn Street (illustrator), The Girl from the Great Sandy Desert, Magabala Books, February 2015, $16.96 (pbk), 98pp., ISBN 978 1 922142 05 4 In the far north west of this continent, the Walmajarri people were spared the depredations of the Indigenous people of the Fitzroy area because their land was unsuitable for cattle. They remained isolated from the European invasion until five or six decades ago. Here is their story, told by Mana Chuguna – she was called Mona at the cattle station where she later worked – and was also…
Caro, Jane Just a Queen University of Queensland Press, May 2015, $19.95, 313pp., ISBN 978 0 7022 5362 1 Those Tudor kings and queens have kept us intrigued since they too bit the dust – Henry VIII and his ‘bastard’ daughter, Elizabeth I especially. Caro has given us the latter’s childhood, in Only a Girl. In this one, apparently the second in a trilogy that the author is contemplating, she is at last Queen Elizabeth, Queen Bess, Gloriana, The Virgin Queen. But we are at a turning point, the moment when she must decide to rid herself of her cousin, Mary…
BAILEY, Harriet (illus.) Gordon Winch (text) The Last ANZAC New Frontier March 2015 32pp $24.99 ISBN 9781925059298 (hardback) Alec Campbell joined up when he was 16. He arrived at Gallipoli towards the end of 1915 and was assigned to carry water and stores from the beach. He spent six weeks at the front and became so ill he had to be sent home. He became the last surviving ANZAC and died in 2003. This picture book shows the true story of young James who was taken to Tasmania by his father to visit Alec in 2001. As the visit progressed James…
Lena Landstrom (text) Olaf Landstrom (illustrations) Where is Pim? Gecko Press February 2015 unpaged $NZ 19.99 pbk ISBN 978-1-927271-74-2; $NZ 34.99 hbk ISBN 978-1-927271-73-5 When Pom throws his teddy Pim into the air which is then caught by a frolicsome dog, Pim disappears. The dog has taken it away and seemingly lost it. Pom searches all over the place, seemingly helped by his dog… Poor Pom. The mystery is solved when Pim is returned by the “other” dog! What is portrayed delightfully here is raw emotions of a child who has lost his teddy-bear. The images are highly emotive: delight,…
Ole Könnecke You Can Do It, Bert! Gecko Press October 2014 (2007 in the original German version) unpaged $NZ19.99 pbk ISBN 978-1-927271-43-8 All children can recall the tension and anxiety they feel when they are pushing themselves beyond their comfort zone. For Bert (a young bird), it is jumping off a branch in order to seemingly learn to fly. He is “well prepared, mentally and physically” and is something of a fastidious bird as he leans over and calculates possibilities. The reader is encouraged to join the narrator’s voice and shout encouragement and indeed command. Bert responds with determination, runs…
Roger Hall (text) Daron Parton (illustrations) My Aunt Mary Went Shopping Scholastic (NZ) 1 November 2014 unpaged $15.99 ISBN 978-1-77543-215-9 Using an accumulative rhyme language pattern, this nonsense verse gives permission for creativity of ideas and expression. Aunt Mary is not your normal aunt for when she goes shopping, she buys a giraffe and a scarf for the giraffe, a goat and a coat for the goat, some yaks and some slacks for the yaks and…eventually they all went home for dinner. Do you think the animals were pleased with what Aunt Mary did? Of course not! There was…