Dannika Patterson (text), Megan Forward (illustrator), Jacaranda Magic, Ford Street Publishing, February 2019, 32 pp., RRP $16.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781925804010
This large format paperback is a gentle story about the enormous pleasure children derive from using their imagination. Five girls and boys with ‘nothing to do’ on a hot summer day have dismissed the usual bikes rides, swings and sandpits. As they lie beneath a jacaranda tree, a gust of wind blows numerous blossoms to rest on the children who imagine that the petals are in turn mermaids, dragon scales, asteroids, and fairies. As they climb the tree it becomes successively their boat, castle, space ship and fairy land, with not a mobile phone or iPad in their thoughts. The story is told in rhyming couplets, set in a large typeface. The illustrations capture beautifully the children’s sense of freedom and excitement. Ages 4-7.
Reviewed by Elizabeth Douglas
