JANU, Tamsin Figgy in the World Omnibus, 2014 183pp $15.99 pbk ISBN 9781742990453 SCIS 1661104 Figgy, accompanied by her pet goat, sets off from her village in Ghana, West Africa, for America. Once she is there, she plans to visit a bank to borrow money to buy her grandmother lifesaving medicine. She does this without any understanding that she needs to know the name of the medicine and the type of illness her grandmother has and that you cannot get to America from Africa merely by walking and catching buses. Throughout her journey, she meets a number of people, both…
Author: Admin
Choechoe Brereton is the debut author of the amazing and imaginative A HOUSE FOR DONFINKLE. Choechoe loves writing. She also loves rainy days, hot chocolate, whales, friendly monsters and magical shops. She doesn’t know where she would be if she couldn’t imagine. Luckily for all concerned, she does imagine and today she imagines for us at Reading Time…. I’ve been an elite nation-saving secret squirrel, witnessed the births and deaths of worlds no one would ever suspect true or possible, and befriended snarling, untameable beasts despite the grim warnings of naysayers. My imagination is a funny place which, I suppose, makes me…
BRERETON, Choechoe (text) Wayne Harris (illus.) A House for Donfinkle Walker, 2014 unpaged $24.95 ISBN 9781921720536 SCIS 1657963 Donfinkle, with the help of Doggle, is building a home. He is very happy with it and the Woobles seem happy too. But the arrival of a critical Flooble causes Donfinkle to doubt his pride in his house and he sets about changing it to suit the Flooble’s opinion. Progressively a Mooble, Gooble and Blooble arrive and suggest further changes, which Donfinkle carries out. Finally Donfinkle can see that the changes have made his house jumbly and ghastly and realises ‘From now on…
TREASURE or TRASH? Reading Time is having a GARAGE SALE We’re cleaning up our offices to suit our new online, streamlined Reading Time persona and have discovered we have back copies of Reading Time magazine that we no longer need. The magazines range from Volume 1, Number 15 to Volume 57, Number 4. We also have some Indexes in our archives ready to be rehoused or recycled. We need to have the office all sorted out by 30 September, so it’ll be first in, best dressed! Costs, including postage and handling, are: $1.40 (1 copy) $2.10 (2 copies) $3.50 (3…
LOUGHLIN, Patrick (text) Billy Slater (contributions) Nahum Ziersch (illus.) Try Time ISBN 9780857982469 SCIS 1648518; Banana Kick ISBN 9780857982667 SCIS 1663570 Random House, 2014 144pp $12.99 pbk Billy Slater introduces each story and what follows supports his message. The West Hill Ravens Under 11’s are a mixed group of Rugby League players. Via the story, the tactics of the game are explained and the value of teamwork is stressed. At the end of each book there is a profile of the main character from the team and smaller vignettes of the supporting characters. There are also different tips from…
WILLIAMS, Rachel & Robyn Chiles (illus.) Peter Warrington (text) The Girl who Made Rainbows 2013 ISBN 9780646903279 and WILLIAMS, Rachel (illus.) Peter Warrington (text) The Stripey Street Cat 2013 (2nd (Ed) ISBN 9780646561882 Not Quite Newtown unpaged $15.00 Many techniques seem to have been involved to devise the illustrations. It appears that photographs of city spaces and empty alleys decorated by graffiti art have been used as the background for digital images of characters in the stories. Wonderful feline images have been stencilled on old walls and then photographed. The stories involve a little girl who paints brilliant rainbows low down, for…
McKENZIE, Heath I Wanna Be a Pretty Princess Scholastic, 2014 unpaged $16.99 ISBN 9781742838212 SCIS 1655117 This ironic take on the Cinderella story is one that will delight many readers. It begins with the dream of many little girls to be a princess. All her dreams seem to be answered when a real, almost Disney princess, except for her brown hair, arrives to assist in making the dream come true. She learns about all the necessities of a princess, a pretty dress, perfect make up, perfect hair, perfect manners and perfect dancing. The problem is it is not quite what…
JOHNSTONE, J. Andrew Herman and Bolt: Asteroid Belt Voices and Effect: Mangoesnanas, 2013 unpaged $17.95 pbk IBSN 9780646556055 Sulphur-crested cockatoo Herman (the smart one?) and black cockatoo Bolt are quietly sitting on a tree branch watching the night sky, when an asteroid crashes on top of Bolt. Although battered, dazed and confused he soon demonstrates some amazing new powers, but sadly, they don’t last long and he reverts to his former inarticulate self. With vibrantly colourful, bold and splashy illustrations conveying movement and action, this story has the potential of being very funny, but misses the mark with its rather…
HORVATH, John (illus.) Mitch Oxborough & Anne Winter (text) The Adventures of Fatty the Ratrod Mitch Oxborough, 2013 unpaged $25.00 ISBN 9780987462503 Fatty the Ratrod is a 1951 Dodge Fargo truck, typical of the era with its big bulbous bonnet and bodywork. Proud of its forty years of service, it now rusts forlornly out in the paddock, displaced by a big shiny haughty new truck. Suggesting the adages ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ and ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure’, Fatty is rescued from the scrap heap by a pair of young rock and rollers and…
DAVEY, Owen Laika the Astronaut Allen & Unwin, 2014 unpaged $19.99 ISBN 9781743318935 SCIS 1651519 Perhaps you are too young to remember how the world looked up in November 1957 to watch the Russian Sputnik like a bright star cross the sky. It was carrying a little dog, Laika, the first animal in space. We know that the rocket malfunctioned, and Laika was lost to the world. We all shed a few tears for the little hero, a victim of human curiosity, because we knew that she had died, alone and, no doubt, afraid. Owen Davey has given little Laika…