BAYNTON, Martin (text) Terri Baynton (illus.) Dragon Island Scholastic (NZ) 2014 unpaged NZ$19.50 pbk ISBN 9781775431916 SCIS 1672311 Look out Jurassic Park because there is nothing like Dragon Island! For on this island all the dragons are ‘fierce, fiery and ferocious’ except for Norman. Rather than tearing down trees and breaking boulders, Norman likes to make things. However, there are limits to what one can make. Can you make people do what you want them to do? This is Norman’s dilemma. Is animal nature fixed or fluid? Are we simply performers or do we have agency? Indeed it is the…
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BARNETT, Mac (text) Jon Klassen (illus.) Sam & Dave Dig a Hole Walker, 2014 unpaged $24.95 ISBN 9781406357769 SCIS 1676374 This is a picture book about 2 brothers digging a hole in search of ‘something spectacular’. I love the clever play between Barnett’s words and Klassen’s illustrations. Children will delight in spotting clues hidden in the pictures that are not apparent in the text. There is something spectacular buried in their backyard. Do they find it? You’ll need to read the book to find out. I particularly enjoy the expressions on the face of their charming little brown dog. At…
ALLEN, Pamela One Sunday Viking, 2014 unpaged $24.99 ISBN 9780670077656 SCIS 1665838 One Sunday is a fun story exploring the heart of family tradition and routine in which Pamela Allen revives the idea of the Sunday family gathering and the Sunday roast with a delicious twist. Paired with Pamela’s distinct illustrations that are playfully donned with illustrative text, this book is a fantastic read aloud, exploring the sounds of a cold and windy day and creating atmosphere on every page through the use of repetition and Allen’s lyrical language and expression. The old woman believes the weather is too severe…
ALLAN, Nicholas The Prince and the Potty Red Fox, 2014 unpaged NZ$19.99 pbk ISBN 9781782952572 SCIS 1678920 Of course, taking the micky out of the upper crust has always been a source of humour for the hoi-polloi (the commoner) but in Nicholas Allan’s work, children will also enjoy the scatological. The cover image foregrounds the British flag, and so we know that it is really about the real Prince (as well as the Duke and the Duchess) though any visual likeness has been muted. And who would have thought that there was a Royal Potty Museum that has a collection…
WALKER, Carlie Audacity: stories of heroic Australians in wartime Dept of Veterans Affairs/Australian War Memorial, 2014 56pp $19.95 pbk ISBN 9781877007934 SCIS 1654612 The eleven Australians featured in this collection may not have agreed with a dictionary definition of ‘audacity’ to describe their acts of bravery for which they won awards and honours but each of them boldly took risks helping others against extreme dangers which could have cost them their lives. Each of them is worthy of being remembered for their bravery in wartime and this series of tributes does the task well. The range of the Australians covers…
RUSHBY, Pamela The Ratcatcher’s Daughter A&R, 2014 233pp $16.99 pbk+e ISBN 9780732297138 SCIS 1654126 It was April 1900 and Brisbane was in turmoil. The bubonic plague which had been rampant in China and India and elsewhere in Asia and which had its first victims in Sydney in January had now arrived in the Queensland capital brought by thousands of rats whose fleas caused the deadly disease. The municipal council quickly organized its defences to control the disease setting up a quarantine station at the Colmslie Plague Hospital well away from the residential areas. Many survived the ordeal but the bodies…
CAMPBELL, Lorraine Resisting the Enemy Palmer Higgs, 2014 364pp $24.95 pbk ISBN 9780992549329 SCIS 1692103 In the dark days in early 1941 in German-occupied France, a young Frenchwoman, Valentine (Valli) de Vaillant, 22, is involved in the dangerous mission of rescuing downed British airmen and she helps one of them make it by train from Lyon to Marseilles where he could escape to safety. This is the opening to a vividly presented biographical account of this brave young woman, daughter of an Australian opera singer and a French architect, who spent her childhood in Malvern in Melbourne and who went…
TAYLOR, Helen Kakapo Dance Penguin, 2014 unpaged NZ$19.99 pbk ISBN 9780143506010 SCIS 1672652 One of the joys of living in the New Zealand country is to hear the cheeky chirp of the fantail, the ‘wowo’ of the gliding native pigeon and the extraordinary ‘chime’ of the bellbird. But what about the sound of that rare bird, the kakapo? Well, all the birds of the forest sing together but the kakapo asserts ‘Kakapo DON’T sing or dance, we’re just not made that way!’ Indeed they don’t. Kakapo sound recording can be found online. The creator of this blend of words and…
SZYMANIK, Melinda (text) Dominique Ford (illus.) The Song of Kauri Scholastic (NZ), 2014 unpaged NZ$27.00 ISBN 9781775432289 SCIS 1668721 This picture book is a wonderful blend of image and narrative whereby both evoke the mystery of the beginnings of time from the point of view of the kauri tree. Though the kauri tree was known as the god Tane Mahuta for Māori, the author here has envisaged life before humans, taking up a mystical/spiritual stance whereby what is evoked is a sense of otherness and possibility. What if the nature was truly given a voice? What would the kauri tree…
ROY, Anupa (text) Cheng Puay Koon (illus.) Travels of Little Rice Grass Pagesetters Services, 2014 24pp SGD$14.44 pbk ISBN 9789810903749 We often take things for granted. But do we know the stories that sit behind the products that we purchase and the possible implications? This picture book is an excellent introduction into rice, a staple food for many across the world. Rice here is given a voice, a voice that can recall histories of the past use of rice as well as challenges for the future. An excellent example of faction, the use of narrative style through the voice of…