Krys Saclier (text) and Cathy Wilcox (illustrator), Camp Canberra, Wild Dog Books, March 2022,40 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781742036120
The children of Mount Mayhem Primary School are back! We last saw them learning about preferential voting in the wonderful Vote 4 Me and now they are off to Canberra on a school trip.
The book tracks three groups of (fictional) children as they make their way around Canberra and write about what they see and learn at each location. Their three-day itinerary includes such venerable locations as the National Museum of Australia, Government House, The High Court, Parliament House, the National Library of Australia, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and more!
Each page includes photographs of the buildings as well as illustrations and collages and the book concludes with a quiz. The endpapers depict a map of Canberra marked with each of the locations.
Camp Canberra: By the Smart and Excellent Students of Mount Mayhem Primary School, like the award-winning Vote 4 Me, is an excellent educational picture book for upper to mid-primary aged students for both the classroom and in the home. No other picture book teaches politics to primary-aged students in such an engaging format and is sure to inspire some family holidays to our nation’s capital.
Reviewed by Pamela Ueckerman
