KING, Stephen Michael Snail and Turtle are Friends Scholastic, 2014 unpaged $24.99 ISBN 9781743620236 SCIS 1660445 With Snail and Turtle happily smiling out at the reader from the cover, we can guess that this is a heart-warming tale for very young children. It is a day in the life of the two friends where we can see that although they are friends, they like different things and they do the same thing differently. Stephen Michael King uses white spaces extremely well in this book, which makes it accessible for the very young. There are details within the uncluttered illustrations, which…
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KELLY, Deborah (text) Lisa Stewart (illus.) Jam for Nana Random House, 2014 unpaged $19.99 ISBN 9780857980014 SCIS 1651157 This is a beautifully produced picture book with a simple story about love and imagination in which a young girl wants to make her grandmother taste the sunny apricots of her youth. From the horizontal format to the quality paper used for contents and jacket, the effective endpapers and practical type size, there has been much care invested in the production. This is the illustrator’s fifth book but some of the drawings, particularly those of the somewhat wooden grandmother, are disappointing. Ages…
HOSKING, Jackie (text) Marjorie Crosby-Fairall (illus.) The Croc and the Platypus Walker, 2014 unpaged $24.95 ISBN 9781922077608 SCIS 1664140 The Owl and the Pussy Cat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat…. What? No, that’s not right. ‘The Croc and the Platypus trundled off in a rusty old Holden ute.’ That’s better. Jackie Hosking has reworked the old Edward Lear nonsense poem into an Australian context complete with Holden utes, Cockies, sheep shearers and Uluru. The danger in revisiting the classics is appearing overly derivative, which can detract from an otherwise excellent text. Jackie Hosking has not done…
HOBBS, Leigh Mr Chicken Lands on London Allen & Unwin, 2014 unpaged $24.99 ISBN 9781743315927 SCIS 1666663 Brash bold and outstandingly yellow, Mr Chicken takes us on a whirlwind tour of London. From the palace and morning tea with the Queen, he hurries through an itinerary that leaves him ill by afternoon. Casting an eerie yellow glow through the face of Big Ben, his is a visit of incorrect manners and delightful grumpiness. Business as usual for the irascible Mr Chicken. Highly Recommended. reviewed by Chris Dayman
GWYNNE, Phillip (text) Sandy Okalyi (illus.) Little Owl Working Title Press, 2014 unpaged $24.99 ISBN 9781921504587 SCIS 1651528 Young children will love this story: when a baby owls falls out of his nest he meets eight other Australian animals but frightens them away with his hooting. Each animal has a distinctive manner of escape: soaring, swooping, scurrying, scuttling, flitting, strutting, and so on. The verbs are fun and small children will enjoy imitating the animals’ actions. The illustrations, in bright colours including a particularly vivid crimson, perfectly complement the story of this large format hardback. Recommended. Ages 3-6. reviewed by…
GRUSS, Karin (text) Tobias Krejtschi (illus.) One Red Shoe Wilkins Farago, 2014 unpaged $24.99 ISBN 9780987109965 SCIS 1658415 This moving story reaches across all ages. A photojournalist in a war-torn country accepts an assignment to photograph the aftermath when a busload of children is attacked. The story starts immediately with the endpapers showing him in his office, smoking a cigarette and obviously thinking about the news item. Illustrated mainly in black-and-white line the story focusses on one injured child whose right leg has been hit by a grenade, his left leg is still wearing a red basketball shoe. He reminds…
GOSS, Mini Too Hot for Spots Allen & Unwin, 2014 unpaged $19.99 ISBN 9781743435410 This full colour glossy production features puppets and dolls knitted and costumed by Mini Goss. There is Stella, who is a yellow dog dressed in a fluffy top, and a sick and sorry-for-himself Barry who is a brown dog in pyjamas. Stella puts Barry to bed and since he needs a doctor she dutifully puts on all the regalia that a doctor might wear and carry. Spectacles complete her outfit as she puts Barry through the paces of a medical examination. Her diagnosis is ‘Weasles’, a…
HULME, Celeste (illus.) Rebecca McRitchie (text) Edward and the Great Discovery New Frontier, 2014 unpaged $24.99 ISBN 9781925059007 SCIS 1661102 Picture books generally are becoming more sophisticated both in presentation and in content. This book falls into the category of post-modern because of the avant-garde illustrations such as an inset of a small boy fondling a skull and many others of archaeologists in stiff poses, as though for a camera. As well, digging and other tools used by archaeologists are also inset. Indeed on one double spread there are some thirty frames to do with archaeology and discovery; each one…
DAVIES, Bronwyn (retold from the original by Pixie O’Harris) The Fairy Who Wouldn’t Fly NLA Pub, 2014 55pp $24.99 ISBN 9780642278517 SCIS 1661187 The text here printed it is essentially that of the renowned and much-loved Australian author of numerous fairy books for young children, Pixie O’Harris [Rona Olive Pratt], and was first published in 1947. In 1976 the text was retold by David Harris and published by Angus & Robertson. This is yet another retelling, but remaining true to the spirit of O’Harris. The illustrations, too, are essentially those of the original; but seemingly recoloured and augmented by decorations…
VIDAL, Beatriz Martin (illus.) Anne-Louise Channon (text) Miaka Windy Hollow, 2014 unpaged $25.95 ISBN 9781922081315 SCIS 1652163 This book is almost folkloric in its construction. It is the poignant story of Anya, a little Russian girl, whose father dies following a couple of particularly cold winters. Anya’s mother, unable to take care of her, in the best fairy tale tradition sends her away. She goes to live with the village baker and his wife and takes with her Miaka, her magnificent pet owl. But betrayal follows not far behind. Even though Anya works hard to pay for the owl’s food,…