TORSETER, Øyvind The Hole WilkinsFarago, 2014 unpaged $29.99 ISBN 9780987109989 SCIS 1651671 This book comes with an actual real hole about a .5cm in diameter right through the book. There is nothing imaginary about it but it is the catalyst for an amusing and quirky flight of fancy around it. A person is unpacking in his new apartment when he discovers that he shares it with a moving hole. He captures it in a box and takes it to a scientist for analysis and goes home. This simple journey provides endless opportunity to show the hole as the wheel of…
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RICHARDS, Claire (illus.) Kel Richards (text) Little Red Riding Hoodie Scholastic, 2014 unpaged $13.99 pbk ISBN 9781742837116 SCIS 1667217 This is Kel Richard’s second story that presents a unique and modern Australian version of an old tale, using a range of colloquial language including a Grandma who is ‘crook’ and ‘a dingo with a smooth style of lingo’. His thoroughly modern Red Riding Hoodie is clad in red boots and sports a pair of headphones tucked over her ears as she strolls thought the mallee. The tone of the text is affectionately tongue in cheek as it moulds the traditional…
MILLER, David First Flight Working Title Press, 2014 unpaged $24.99 ISBN 9781921504570 SCIS 1650367 Joey is a yellow-bellied glider possum. In this beautiful picture book, Joey awakes at dawn to the sound of kookaburras, cicadas and cockatoos. He peeps out from the hole in the tree where he lives and sees the honey eaters and butterflies, but pokes his head out too far, only to fall onto the ground – his first flight. He hides among the frogs and lizards, even from a lyrebird singing to its mate. Finally, as the sun sets, his mother and father find him and…
McKIMMIE, Chris Crikey and Cat Allen & Unwin 2014 unpaged $29.99 ISBN 9781760110031 SCIS 1666616 One night the protagonist looks up at the sky and notices that all the stars are gone. So he gets in his ute with his dog Crikey and his cat, and they head to the all night hardware store. They make new stars and put them up in the sky, only to have them blown down by a sudden storm. However, there is help to get them back up where they belong. The illustrations are very much in keeping with Chris McKimmie’s style. The night…
LEE, Tony (text) Sam Hart (illus.) Messenger: the legend of Joan of Arc Walker, 2014 unpaged $22.95 pbk ISBN 9781406336153 SCIS 1666385 In 1424, Jehanne d’Arc heard the voice of an angel telling her that she was to be a prophet and deliver messages from God to save her people. Although her task would make Jehanne a ‘bright flame of faith’, it would also shorten her life. So begins the story of Joan of Arc, maid and eventual martyr. Told in powerful graphic novel form, with plenty of action, the story winds its way from Joan’s childhood through to her…
LANCE, Charlotte I Have A Dog (an inconvenient dog) Allen& Unwin, 2014 unpaged $19.99 ISBN 9781743317815 SCIS 1661095 This inconvenient dog is large and white, perhaps an Old English Sheep Dog. The line and watercolour wash illustrations show the wild mess and chaos the inconvenient dog can bring about. When the boy who tells the story wakes up, has breakfast, or puts on his socks, everything around him can be in disarray with muddy marks on the floor. The boy’s friends ignore him and make a fuss of the dog instead of playing. On the other hand the dog can…
HURST, Elise Imagine a City Omnibus, 2014 unpaged $24.99 ISBN 9781742990095 SCIS 1661101 Imagine a City is a black and white picture book about imaginings and it is lovely. I’d like to go to a city like the one Elise Hurst is imagining! Some of the sketches are amazing – especially the ones of pictures whose contents are emerging from their frames. I can almost see the fish swishing their tails and the leaves falling from the trees. I liked the rhymes too: ‘A world without edges, Where the wind takes you high, Where buses are fishes and the fish…
BADEL, Ronan The Lazy Friend Gecko Press, 2014 unpaged NZ$24.99 pbk ISBN 9781927271414 SCIS 1650502 If young children don’t know what a sloth is, let alone to be slothful then this wordless book may well help! The opening page depicts stasis as three animals (snake, frog and bird) sit atop a tree and enjoy a game of cards. Sloth meanwhile is hanging from a branch, asleep. Then chaos begins on the next page when the howling wind comes, the tree that snake is entwined around collapses, and the animals are thrown all over the place. Sloth, of course, is asleep. …
ALBOROZO, Gabriel Let’s Play Allen & Unwin, 2014 unpaged $22.99 ISBN 9781743316283 SCIS 1666214 Can you imagine a world where the instruments of the orchestra create beautiful colours and shapes? Gabriel Alborozo can. Through his whimsical, engaging drawings Alborozo introduces each instrument, capturing some of the beauty of sound through the stroke of a brush and the curl of a line. Maybe you will hear the rumblings of the tuba or the majesty of the grand piano as you turn each page but whatever the experience it is a book that celebrates sound through a kaleidoscope of colour. The illustration…
ACTON, Sarah Poppy Cat Scholastic, 2014 unpaged $24.99 ISBN 9781743620168 SCIS 1663759 Poppy Cat is really a copy cat who gets into mischief by almost copying the routines of her doting owner. The illustrations are a delight, with a restrained palette beautifully depicting the lightness and agility of a much loved companion. Text is simple and the story quite predictable. reviewed by Chris Dayman