Archive | February 2019

BumbleBunnies: The Pond

BumbleBunnies: The Pond

BumbleBunnies: The Pond

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BumbleBunnies: The Pond

Graeme Base

HarperCollins, 2018

24pp., hbk., RRP $A16.99

9781460753941

Early one morning Wuffle the puppy, Lou the kitten and Billington the duck are playing with Wuffle’s new ball when they accidentally send it into the pond.  Billington goes after the ball and Wuffle jumps in too, but Wuffle can’t swim.  Is he going to drown? It looks like this will be a story with an unhappy ending when suddenly, out of the blue sky comes an amazing sight…

This is the first in a new series by the amazing Graeme Base, written for our earliest readers.  (The second, The Sock, is due later this month, with two more later in the year.) In it he uses simple text and his exquisite detailed artwork to bring everyday incidents to life in story, with the added twist of three superhero bunnies who use their intelligence and unique skills to get the heroes out of potentially dangerous situations.

Apart from being entertaining stories in themselves, the nature of series means that even little ones can learn about each character and carry what they know of them over to the next book.  They will delight in helping the BumbleBunnies choose what is needed for each situation, giving them a sense of power over the words, that most stories don’t have and suggesting the ways that the BumbleBunnies can each use their skills to rescue the situation.

While this is quite a departure from his works for older children, nevertheless, Base’s attention to detail in the illustrations makes them so rich that they demand to be read over and over again with something new to discover each time.

 

Flat Cat

Flat Cat

Flat Cat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flat Cat

Hiawyn Oram

Gwen Millward

Walker Books, 2019

32pp., hbk., RRP $A24.99

9781406371543

High in an apartment at the top of a tall building in one of the world’s busiest cities Sophie lives with her parents and her pet cat that she called Jimi-My-Jim.  She loves Jimi-My-Jim dearly and spoils him in every possible way.  But Jimi-My-Jim is not happy – for all that he has all the things a cat could want, the one thing he desires most is a cat friend.  But there is no way out of the apartment  and as he watches the world go by from the apartment window for hours and hours, days and days, he begins to go flat. Soon, hHe even looked as flat as he feels

Then one day, he finds a way to escape and he finds himself in the world of the city and its “fat cats, cool cats, jazz cats, boss cats, scaredy cats, alley cats, cat burglars, cat-nappers and even a few dogs who thought they were the cat”s whiskers.”

But is this a new life for Jimi-My-Jim or is he destined to be a Flat Cat watching on from the window for ever?

This is an intriguing book for young readers who love cats and who will adore the amazing, distinctive artwork that helps to tell Jimi-My-Jim’s tale.  But there is also an undertone of whether it’s right to keep animals in places where they are cooped up all day and can’t access the outdoors.  And whether things are a substitute for getting outside, friendship and all the other stuff that a wider world can offer.

And it brings to mind T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,  the foundation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats. Perhaps it could be an entry point into those poems starting with Macavity’s Not There! Nothing like getting our youngest readers into worlds perhaps considered beyond them via a genuine bridge!

 

 

Australian Birds

Australian Birds

Australian Birds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Australian Birds

Matt Chun

Little Hare, 2018

36pp., hbk., RRP $A29.99

9781760502003

It took millions of years of isolation and a diverse range of habitats for Australian birds to evolve the way they did. The result is many of the world’s most striking and beautiful birds, including some that are stranger than fiction. In Australian Birds,  artist Matt Chun showcases 16 remarkable species that have captured the imagination of the world. 

This is a beautifully crafted book, superbly illustrated with great attention to detail and colour, which is the perfect introduction to Australia’s unique birdlife. Each of the birds featured is one that will be well-known to many of our students because it will be a part of their environment, but at the same time, will be new to others who live in a different part of the country.  Living in the bush as I do, I’m privileged to see lots of varieties on a daily basis, whether it’s the little finches who have just raised a family in their little nest in the honeysuckle outside my window, to the magpie family who bring their babies down to feed and learn each year, the cheeky crimson rosellas who delight in splashing in the birdbaths we have around or the raucous kookaburras who are better than any alarm clock.

Children will delight in telling you which ones they already recognise, while it would serve as a wonderful resource to start identifying,  spotting and tallying the species and numbers of birds found in your school playground throughout the various seasons and investigate ways that it could be made more bird friendly, perhaps even being involved in the Aussie Backyard Bird Count in October this year.  

 

The Man With Small Hair

The Man With Small Hair

The Man With Small Hair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Man With Small Hair

Jane Jolly

Andrew Joyner

Hardie Grant Egmont, 2018

32pp., hbk., RRP $A24.99

9781742977584

The man with small hair loves his small hair. He also loves his short pants, zing-a-ding boots and clickety-clackety beads. He cartwheels with joy and bursts into song when he wears them. But the man with small hair is the only person who wears his hair small, and no one else has colourful boots or musical beads either. He decides to hide the things that make him happy in order to blend in with the crowd. Until one day he looks in the mirror and doesn’t recognise the man staring back at him. 

Jane Jolly has written a particularly pertinent story about being brave and confident enough to walk to the beat of your own drum, rather than the tune that someone else is piping for you. Sadly, in a world that wants to celebrate individuality and relies on creativity and lateral thinking to solve its problems, conformity seems to be the name of the game and those who dare to be different are teased, bullied and shunned.  So the man who prefers his hair short, and indeed loves it because he likes the feel of the prickly bristles and the funny shadows they make, hides behind disguises that make him seem like all the others on the outside, makes himself one of the crowd who move along in a grey flock, lacking the confidence to express who he really is.

Andrew Joyner’s choice of a predominantly grey palette for the start of the story emphasises the monotonous, monochromatic world that the man inhabits underlining what a dismal place a one-look-fits-all environment can be  But when the man lets his real self shine through, then there is a great burst of colour – as bright as his new found confidence. Not only does the story give the inner person permission to be themselves, but perhaps when they do they will inspire others to discard their masks and show the world their true colours. And even if it is a world of school uniforms there is always some how that we can let ourselves shine.

An excellent story to start off the mindfulness curriculum for the new school year.

Teaching notes are available.

Just So Stories for Little Children

Just So Stories for Little Children

Just So Stories for Little Children

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just So Stories for Little Children

Rudyard Kipling 

Retold by Anna Milbourne, Rosie Dickins, Rob Lloyd Jones

John Joven

Usborne, 2018

160 pp., hbk., RRP $A24.99

9781474938051  

Since 1902 when Rudyard Kipling began to explain how certain creatures got their distinguishing features as bedtime stories to his daughter Josephine, children have been fascinated by this collection known as the “Just So Stories”, apparently because Josephine said they had to be told, “Just so.” 

Continuously in print for almost 120 years, this new collection has been retold by a number of different authors and pulled together into a collection for a new generation by the distinctive illustrations of John Joven.  

Collected together in the one volume are six of the stories –  How the Elephant got his Trunk, How the Leopard got his Spots,  How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin. How the Whale got his Throat, How the Camel got his Hump and Why the Kangaroo Jumps. – classic literature for young readers beautifully packaged in a 21st century container with much more simple language than the originals and stunning illustrations by John Joven. This is a perfect collection that meets the needs of many – a read-aloud bedtime story, one for independent readers and also one for those who are a bit older but who are learning English as a new language.