What My Daddy Loves

Raissa Figueroa

HarperCollins, 2023

32pp., pbk., RRP $A14.99

9780008608408

Some daddies love going outdoors and exploring the world.
Some daddies love teaching their kids how to fix machines.
Some daddies love learning and dreaming big dreams.
But there’s a special something – or someone – that daddies love best of all…

With Father’s Day in Australia fast approaching, many classes focus on families and the men in them and so this is an opportunity for children to discover and share the things that make their daddies smile and feel joy. Ordinary things like pushing a little one in a trolley through the supermarket as well as their special interests.  Told from the perspective of a number of young children, it is clear that daddies are diverse and do so much more than the go-to-work-watch-TV stereotype of the past. 

Text is minimal and repetitive making it easy for young readers and writers to navigate and emulate, and while the fathers vary in age, size, shape, hairstyles, even being deaf or in a wheelchair,  and are depicted in various shades of brown, what shines through on each page is that commonality of love for their child, finding the joy in every day. .