Mila & Ivy

Katrina McKelvey

Jasmine Berry

Wombat Books, 2022

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

9781761110801

The fun that can be had with a cardboard box is only limited by the imagination and sisters Mila and Ivy have plenty of that. Mila is a cardboard design engineer and as well as the usual stacks, cars, tunnels and hats, she takes things further to build robots, zoos , roller coasters and the best time machine ever.  Currently she is designing and constructing a cupcake catapult Ivy but things change when Ivy destroys their project, making cardboard confetti instead. Mila is devastated and wants nothing more to do with Ivy. Mila continues to engineer – alone. But something is missing. Maybe Ivy was making cardboard confetti for a reason. So how do sisters rebuild their relationship while engineering their next ultimate cardboard creation?

Building on the theme of girls can do anything, and reminding them that no field of endeavour is off-limits because of gender, readers can have fun dreaming of something spectacular they could make with a cardboard box and then draw up plans, gather materials, experiment and document their work as they build not only learning a lot about the design process but also how to deal with their frustration when things don’t work out and developing patience and resilience as they solve the problems.  Perhaps there is a better solution than making cardboard confetti.

It is also a story of the inevitable clashes in the sister-sister relationship that opens the door to discussions about the reader’s relationships with their siblings, the range of emotions including frustration, heartbreak, stubbornness, and determination as they eventually reconcile and understand that such ups and downs are normal.  That no matter how pesky little sisters can be (says the grandmother of two, five years apart) that there is always a special bond and as they grow up, the age difference becomes less. 

One that will resonate with so many…