Chris GURNEY (text) John Bennett (illustrations) Esau the Paw Scholastic (NZ) 1 April 2014 unpaged $15.99 pbk ISBN 978-1-77543-185-5 For those of you who “own” (as if cats can be “owned”) a Persian cat, this picture book will resonate. What with biddy bids and fur balls, the challenge of looking after a long-haired cat is not for the faint-hearted. So, when Esau the paw who has “too many tangles and twigs in his hair” that result in his fur being “a disgrace and a shame” and he is “matted and messy and knobbly and gnarly,” his Very Tall Mother…
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WARD, Lynn (text) Anthea Stead (illus.) Sally Snickers’ Knickers Walker 2014, unpaged A$24.95 NZ$27.99 ISBN 9781921720499 SCIS 1682378 Sally Snickers likes to wear knickers – on her head. She also wears her jumpers inside out and her socks don’t often match, so you could say she’s an individual. But her teacher doesn’t like her wearing different types of underwear on her head and gives Sally an ultimatum; no proper hat, no play. Her classmates rally around to support Sally and come up with a plan to keep her knickers on her head no matter where she is. The rhyming text…
WALLACE, Adam Rhymes with ART: learn cartooning the fun way! JoJo Pub/Krueger Wallace Press, 2014 162pp $14.99 pbk ISBN 9780980828269 SCIS 1666940 If you love to write crazy rhyming stories and draw cartoons, especially the kind that have something to do with ‘bums,’ then this is the book for you! Adam Wallace teaches his young reader to draw ten cartoon animals through the use of ten rhyming stories. Drawing, Adams believes shouldn’t be stressful, it should be awesome. You can learn to draw a UFO dog, a bum cat or a submarine shark by simply following the rhyming story. Its…
Belinda Ellis. Punctuation Mark, Scholastic (NZ) 2014 unpaged $19.50pbk ISBN 987-1-77543-184-8 This quirky picture book is a wonderful resource for every primary school teacher who teaches middle school children punctuation as part of written language. It is clever, informative and, believe it or not, funny! The idea of teaching punctuation (everything from brackets to colons and hyphens to emoticons) through the power of story is clever. Young Mark is a quirky character too who is passionate about writing and punctuation and when the teacher says that “punctuation saves lives” and demonstrates this, we as readers are taken on an informative…
GREEN, Paula (ed) Jenny Cooper (illus.) A Treasury of NZ Poems for Children Random House (NZ), 288pp NZ$37.99 ISBN 9781775533566 SCIS 1684943 From time-to-time a book is produced that is a must for every school library, let alone class library. This is one. Sourced from a range of previously published books/poets as well as contemporary unpublished works inclusive of children’s own voices, this compendium of poems is essential as a source for classroom work, let alone a wonderful gift for that quirky young poet-in-the-making. Additionally, the illustrations by a leading illustrator add colour and life (as well as visual provocation)…
GREEN, Paula (text) Myles Lawford (illus.) The Letterbox Cat and Other Poems Scholastic (NZ), 2014 96pp NZ$12.00 pbk ISBN 9781775432234 SCIS 1665791 A range of poetic forms (acrostic, narrative poems, nonsense and comic verse, and shape poems) are all used here to excite the young reader/speaker about life and all its funny aspects (especially cats)! For example, ‘Nice Ice’ (p. 47) is a delightful take on ice-cream where the use of typescript/word and letter shapes) tell the ‘story’. We can all share our favourite ice-cream flavour here! Whilst slurping on the ice-cream, read ‘Sand’ (pp 38-39) and recall the joy…
CLARKE, Pat (text) Graeme Compton (illus.) Howie the Yowie: adventures of a lovable monster Little Steps, 2014 unpaged $24.95 ISBN 9781925117165 SCIS 1691938 This is a fantastic, quintessential Australian story, complete with Aussie colloquialisms and slang. Set in Goonoo Forest near Dubbo this book marries fact, fiction and folklore to tell a wonderful story of the value of family, community and acceptance to create an adventurous yarn about a girl named Hannah and her friendship with a Yowie named Howie. Hannah teaches her family to look beyond the tales of yowies and see Howie for who he is underneath all…
ALSOP, Kelly (text) Boris Silvestri (illus.) Run Tree Run JoJo Pub, 2014 unpaged $16.99 pbk ISBN 9780987607768 SCIS 1674033 The morning calm in the bush is disturbed by a strange frightening sound. The old tree, home to many creatures, knows the sounds warn that a mine is coming which means ‘humans come and cut down the forest, pollute the streams and dig up the earth until nothing is left but a big hole’. The tree advises different animals how they can escape but stays to face the machines because in the past ‘caring humans chained themselves to my mother tree…
WORTHINGTON, Michelle (text) Sanda Temple (illus.) Possum Games Wombat, 2014 unpaged $19.99 ISBN 9781925139136 SCIS 1677827 Have you ever wondered what Possums get up to when they scurry about at night? Why are they scampering on the roof and swinging from tree to tree? In this cheeky tale Michelle Worthington tells us every night the Possums would gather to play their night time games. Tug-O-War with weathered rope, High Jump over the fences, volleyball with Watermelons, shot put with Mangos, Cricket in the moonlight. But Riley a particularly shy possum is disappointed by his lacking abilities in the night time…
WILSON, Marika Come Count with Me! Allen & Unwin/The Little Big Book Club, 2014 unpaged $19.99 ISBN 9781743313435 SCIS 1676334 This sweet story features an enthusiastic little chick encouraging Nana to join her in counting from one to five. Nana, wearing glasses and a rather worried expression, seems to be quite confused about the correct sequencing of numbers. This may be a clever ploy by Nana to keep chicky on the right track through practice – or could also be read as depicting this Nana as extremely forgetful and confused. So in effect this book could be used with young…