Ill. by Martha Lightfoot. Busy Wheels series. Scholastic,
2013. ISBN: 9781742835112
(Ages: 3-6) Recommended. Rabbit loves racing around the track with
Racing Car. The big race is about to take place and as the mechanics
do some final checks on Racing Car Rabbit zips up his overalls and
puts on his helmet. VVRROOOMMM goes Racing Car as Rabbit steers it
onto the track and WHOOSH go the cars as they screech around the
bend. But what's that up ahead? The crowd gasps. There's an oil
spill on the track! Can Rabbit and Racing Car get safely around and
will it be Rabbit standing on the winner's podium?
The great elements of this book are its simplicity of story, the
relaxed way it introduces new and technical language and the fun way
it encourages interaction with its readers. The technical language
or terms associated with cars and car racing such as 'pit stop',
'skids' and 'marshall' are printed in bold print allowing young
readers to pick them out and consider them. The illustrations
themselves are clean and bold with primary colours and are very
accurate in their representation of the machinery and its parts and
the race track itself. The last couple of pages dedicate themselves
to factual information about race cars. There is a labelled diagram
of a racing car and labelled pictures of different types of racing
machines, eg. Motorbike, Formula 1 car, rally car.
This is not only a fun and engaging story but is highly factual and
informative - a perfect story to share with those curious
machine-loving preschoolers and young school-age children. Not only
will children pick up a lot of new language and concepts but it
provides ample opportunities for questions and discussions around
what these concepts mean, examining similar terms eg. 'marshall' and
'umpire' and looking at the discourse and symbols of the car racing
world, eg. 'Lights out' means 'go'.
Nicole Smith-Forrest
Sammy and the skyscraper sandwich by Lorraine Francis and Pieter Gudesaboos
Book Island (NZ), 2012. ISBN 978 0 9876696 0.
(Age: 4+) Board book. Picture book. Endeavour. This unusual board
book expounds the tale of a young boy gathering together a whole
range of food items from the kitchen cupboard and the fridge, to
make a sandwich. He piles stuff on top of each other until it
reaches the second floor of the house, passing dad in the bath. Then
on until it reaches the roof, going through the roof to go ever
upward until he needs a crane to add things to the top. The twist at
the end takes Sammy back to reality.
This board book is unusual as it has a large number of words to read
out to a child wanting it read aloud. As it is a board book, it is
one that a child can hold and be rough with, but its size (about
40cm by 25 cm) takes it out of the range of a very young child. It
will need adult supervision because of its size and the number of
words, and children will need help with the story as it is most
unusual, telling a tale about a child using up all the food to build
a sandwich which he then does not eat.
Younger kids will love it being read to them and they will love
finding all the food mentioned in the text, as well as following
Sammy's adventure and mum's patience. Each page has a variety of
things to look at and talk about.
Fran Knight
October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Leslea Newman
Candlewick Press, 2012. ISBN
9780763658076.
(Age: 16+) Highly recommended. Matthew Shepard was a 21 year old gay
student who was savagely beaten, tied to a fence and left to die;
all at the beginning of Gay Awareness week at his college in 1998.
And the guest speaker for Gay Awareness week was Leslea Newman, the
author of this verse novel which is a moving and powerful response
to a shocking crime of hate.
It is a slim volume of 68 poems which unfold chronologically; the
first part focuses on the night Matthew was attacked, the second
part on the subsequent trial. Surprisingly perhaps, given the
subject matter, this is not a difficult book to read. Indeed there
is a certain beauty and elegance about the volume which makes the
story it tells even more shocking. And this dichotomy is nowhere
more apparent than in the cover: a seemingly peaceful pastoral scene
which takes on new meaning with the prologue poem The Fence
(before).
Cleverly, the author offers us unique perspectives on events: from
the fence which held Matthew to the moon looking down upon him, from
his cat waiting anxiously at home to the shoes he wore on that
fateful night. The one voice we do not hear is Matthew's. Yet the
humanity of his tale is more imaginatively evoked by revealing how
many were touched by his death.
Newman weaves her tale with a variety of poetic forms, some quite
simple (haiku and rhyming couplets) and some more complex (pantoums
and villanelles). Often it is the sheer simplicity of form that will
strike a chord with the reader whilst the variety complements the
varied voices. Newman's 'explanation of poetic form' at the end of
the volume, only adds to the value and depth of the work.
Newman's sympathy clearly lies with Matthew and she openly labels
his attackers as 'monsters'. However, extensive notes at the
end of her collection outline her sources and the context of each
poem and if readers are concerned about her bias, there are also
several pages of resources for further viewing.
If October Mourning is A Song for Matthew Shephard, it is also a
song of hope: that we can learn from his death. This is not just a
lesson in humanity, it is an extraordinary achievement.
Deborah Marshall
Granny Grommet and me by Dianne Wolfer and Karen Blair
Walker Books, 2013. ISBN 978 1 921720 16 1.
(Age: 5+) Highly recommended. Picture book. Overcoming fear.
Grandmothers. The child in this delightful picture book fears the
water. Often going with Granny to the beach with her friends, the
Granny Grommets, she sees them riding the waves, ducking, diving,
twisting and turning as they surf in the bay. The child stays on the
shore with the dog, watching. Sometimes she ventures into the edge
of the water, but jumps back to shore when something touches her
legs. Slowly the grandmothers urge her to take to the water. First
they sit in the shallow rock pool, making sure she feels safe and
comfortable, then the larger pool that is the ocean is braved, when
with goggles and the four women nearby she looks at what the ocean
offers.
The child in the story is not given a name and could be a boy or
girl, so will be accepted by all readers: a child fearing
something and being helped to overcome that fear gently and with
support.
The superb illustrations carry the text beautifully, the use of
water colour with chinagraph pencil, aptly showing the beach and its
movement as the child and the older women tackle the problem. The
four women in their various swimsuits and then wet suits are just
wonderful, their lolly legs striding the sand with confidence, their
belief that the child will come in too, paramount. There are touches
which I really enjoyed: the larger sized print on each page, the
four colours used to differentiate the four women, the observed
animals, the seagulls, the dog and the life beneath the waves. Both
the story and its illustrations are just lovely and will be used by
both parents and teachers to tell of someone else's fears, and how
they were overcome and to showcase a day at the beach. And above all
that, to tell a great story and share the luminous illustrations.
Fran Knight
Birthday bonanza by Aleesah Darlison
Ill. by Serena Geddes. Totally Twins series, Bk 4. New
Frontier Publishing, 2012. ISBN: 9781921928208. 188 pages.
(Age: 7-11) Recommended. This is the fourth 'fabulous diary of
Persephone Pinchgut' and strange names, witty musings and humorous
family drama are what you will find hidden within. This is one of
those books that you feel like you've read a hundred times before
but is nevertheless indulgently fun to read. Young girls will love
'sensible' Persephone and her love-hate relationship with her
identical twin sister Portia. Bossy, self-obsessed Portia is
completely different to Perse who is kind and sensitive. Just back
from a fabulous holiday in Fiji Perse and Portia are busy planning
for their 11th birthday party. Well Persephone is planning - Portia
is scheming how to have a birthday extravaganza complete with disco
ball and hundreds of guests. It seems that the birthday party is all
the twins have to worry about or look forward to . . . until
numerous bombshells are dropped and all pandemonium breaks lose.
Engagements, surprise house guests, lots of babies and one princess
party ensues. In between all this there is Portia attacking baby
possums, yoga classes in the house, cake obsession, wet undies being
thrown around, happy dances over white bread sandwiches and many
un-received 'secret signals'.
This is a lovely book which deep down is about two sisters who may
be different but love each other dearly. It also deals very lightly
with issues of divorce, step-parents and coping with family
change. Full of wit and humour and funny family happenings and
conversations this diary story flows easily, is well written and has
some fantastically amusing black and white illustrations scattered
throughout. A classic pre-teen read that girls will simply love.
Nicole Smith-Forrest
The Burning Library by Geordie Williamson
Text Publishing, 2012. ISBN 9781921922985.
(Age: Mid secondary - Adult) Recommended. Is 'greatness an attribute
that we value in authors anymore'? In The Burning Library: Our
Great Novelists Lost and Found, Geordie Williamson takes the
provocative stance, particularly against Australian academia, that
students are not exposed to enough of our greatest writers. Of
course, 'greatness' can be subjective but Williamson believe that
the Australian literary canon has been dismantled by academics 'in
the name of greater inclusiveness and democracy' - hence the
perceived equal value of a bus ticket and Moby Dick, for example.
Williamson is knowledgeable and erudite and his book will hopefully
generate, if not 'Literature Wars', but a powerful petition for
study of Australian classics.
About fourteen authors and their works are analysed in dedicated
chapters, although there is overlap between these writers and also
those not featured, such as Thea Astley. Williamson focuses on his
chosen authors' most important works, or those that advance his own
thesis. Even though Williamson explains why he has selected these
authors, it would be interesting for readers to add to his list.
Thomas Shapcott and David Foster come to mind. And conversely, how
can Williamson justify including Thomas Keneally and Patrick White
as overlooked writers, even if White may not be read as much as
expected? Female writers form about fifty percent of the content - a
laudable but unforced effort by Williamson. They include Elizabeth
Harrower, Christina Stead and Amy Witting (who, incidentally, worked
at Sydney's Cheltenham Girls' High School). The Burning Library is a useful resource to scaffold close
study of the chosen authors and their texts in secondary and
tertiary institutions. Quotes from great writing are also analysed.
But will this book tempt young readers to read any of the featured
literature? I think it could be the catalyst for a fascination with
Australian literature but, of course, nothing beats reading the
books themselves.
Joy Lawn
A New Year's reunion by Yu Li-Qiong
Ill. by Zhu Cheng-Liang. Walker Books, 2012. ISBN 9781 4063 3857 7.
(Age: 5+) Highly recommended. Picture book. New Year. Taiwan.
Family. Multiculturalism. First published in Taiwan in 2008, this
absolutely charming story offers much more than a tale of father's
homecoming for the New Year. We are simply told that he works away,
helping to build houses in faraway places, as the family prepares
for his return. In the notes at the end of the book, we read that he
is one of the 100 million migrant workers employed in China each
year, given a few days off at New Year to return to his family. When
he comes home the family is happy and joyous, He gives them presents
and then has his beard shaved off to become the father the little
girl, Maomao, remembers. Together the trio make sticky rice balls
for New Year, with Daddy inserting a lucky coin into one. Whoever
retrieves the fortune coin receives good luck. Maomao is the lucky
one, but during the day while visiting friends for New Year, she
loses the coin. A resolution of her loss is paralleled with the loss
of her father as he returns to work in the new year.
I found myself reading and rereading this story as I found more and
more about the lifestyles and customs of Taiwanese people about whom
I knew little. Not only is there a range of things presented in the
text, but the illustrations reflect the lives of these people as
well. The background to each page draws the eye to the abundance of
customs, festivities, clothing, food, housing and activities. I was
totally fascinated by the colour and life of the drawings, and the
book is now by my bed as I reread it. The Chinese dragon snakes its
way across two pages as the family visits their friends, rugged up
in their new padded coats against the very cold weather. The family
makes sticky rice balls to eat, and later walk through the streets
with distinctive housing. The whole will not only add considerably
to any child's understanding of how families celebrate New Year
elsewhere, but also how families operate and work together. Few
children here would only see their fathers once a year, and yet in
this story, both children do just that. It is not only a salutary
read but one that adds considerably to our knowledge of a country
within our region.
Fran Knight
Rocket into space! by Ragbir Bhathal & Johanna Davids
National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2012. Unpaged. Hardback.
(Age: 3-10) Recommended. This book is a pleasant surprise and much
more than I expected from the title. I enjoyed the creativity
generated through the collaboration of Ragbir Bhathal, an
astrophysicist; Johanna Davids, an early childhood educator; and the
National Library of Australia, as a National Year of Reading 2012
project. They challenge children's curiosity about the universe, in
which they live. This publication is well-written, thoughtful and
never patronising.
The adventure begins with Maddy and Jack as they set off on a rocket
journey through space. There are plenty of fascinating facts eg for
the 4 gas giant planets of our solar system we are given the
distance from the sun, time to go around the sun, average
temperature at cloud tops and atmospheric composition. As one would
expect from a 2012 publication the planetary astronomy is up-to-date
and poor Pluto is missing from the featured planets.
Quality production and design have been paramount. The predominantly
blue and silver cover is inviting, attractive... even glamorous. The
illustrations are colourful with rich, natural colours being used to
create the ambience of the world beyond our earth.
There are wheels, tabs and flaps to physically engage the young
child in the journey with Maddy, Jack and their red rocket ship. It
is not a board book, but the pages and movable parts are made from
strong card for little hands to manipulate. Fun projects include
Make a solar system mobile; Make a crater; and Day and night.
Activities include Name a comet and E. T.
There are extras, too, including information about Astronomy
resources in the NLA. At this point it would have been useful to
have clear directions to the NLA website for research purposes.
There is a comprehensive list acknowledging images used in the book,
but at times it is difficult to ascertain which image belongs to
which acknowledgement. Page numbers in this section are not helpful,
as the book is unpaged.
It is suitable for children aged 3-10 years, as a gift or as a
special Library resource.
Margaret Strickland
Because Amelia smiled by David Ezra Stein
Candlewick Press, 2012. ISBN 978 0 7636 4169 6.
(Age: 5+) Warmly recommended. Picture book. Interconnectedness. When
Amelia smiled, Mrs Higgins smiles as well, thinking of her son far
away. She cooks him some biscuits and sends them on. In Mexico
Lionel and his class eat the biscuits, then Sensacia decides that
she too will be teacher like Lionel and so shows her kickboxing
technique to her cousin who videos it, placing it on the internet.
Far away in England a group of dancers see her technique and emulate
it for their dance, which leads them to Israel where they are in a
recital. Each positive thing is carried from one person to another
until the smile eventually reaches back to where it came form,
enriching people's lives along the way, making people connect with
each other.
A simple premise, the tale of just one smile will help bring smiles
to those who read the story, adding their own versions of
interconnectedness and togetherness.
The spectacular use of multi media, crayon, water colour and pencil,
brings each city to life, drawing on varied styles to capture the
essences of those places. I love the pages set in Paris, with its
journey along the Seine, and the high wire act at Positanao. Each
brought smiles of recognition to my face and will delight the range
of readers this admirable book attracts. If a little obvious in its
plea for togetherness, it matters not a jot, as children everywhere
will agree wholeheartedly.
Fran Knight
Blink once by Cylin Busby
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012. ISBN 9781408825808.
(Ages: 12+) Highly recommended. West is unable to move after a bike
accident that puts him in hospital. While there he meets Olivia,
she's the girl in the ward next door. She is beautiful, mysterious
and the girl of his dreams. For his recovery she has done more than
anyone else. But she might not even be alive.
Olivia and West become friends and most nights she sneaks in to
West's room to talk to him. She is the only person that knows what
he is thinking about even though he has never spoken a single word
to her. When West starts having nightmares he is certain that she is
connected to them, but he just doesn't know how. Blink Once is an Amazing book. Written from a teenage boy's
point of view, it has both love and loss, and some supernatural
elements. I would highly recommend this book as it is just so
amazing. It is original and will hold your attention till the very
end.
Tahlia Kennewell (Student)
Dragon Frontier by Dan Abnett
Penguin, 2013. ISBN 978-0-14-134296-2.
(Age: 12+) Dragon Frontier by Dan Abnett is a Wild Western fantasy
full of adventure and mystery. Young Jake Polson and his family set
forth, beginning a much anticipated journey when upon their trek
mysterious fiery disaster spontaneously occurs and the result of
this is Jake being left alone and unwell. Young Jake is taken in by
the friendly, English speaking Nimi'ipuu Native American tribe where
he is healed and well cared for by Tall Elk and White Thunder until
his sickness is too much for them to handle. Down from the hills and
into a small prospector settlement called McKenzie's Prospect Jake
is taken by Yellow Cloud and that is where he is nursed back to
health in the welcoming home of Pius Garret and his family. Jake
finds a uniquely odd mark upon his arm reminds him of legendary
creatures he saw throughout his delirious fever. The people at this
home are kind, gentle, relaxing and easy to relate to. Some of the
other inhabitants of the small town are not quite so gentle but all
are kind enough. Although it is a comfortable place for him to be it
makes Jake more eager to find his Native and mysterious rescuers, or
better yet, his family. The mystery becomes increasingly difficult
to solve as Jake continues his quest to find his family, identify
the marks on his arm and to understand his Native carers.
This novel is written with a language that is aimed at teens. It is
a fantastically written book with pronounced character
personalities. The supporting characters are amazing; they each have
a deep background story that adds emotional value to the novel. The
plot and story line keeps the momentum of the book in force, urging
the reader to keep going and find out what the answer is but the
plot line is very well hidden, stopping over-eager readers from
guessing what happens next.
Sarah Filkin (Student)
Miss Understood by James Roy
Woolshed Press, 2012. ISBN: 9781864718607. 288 pages RRP: $16.95
(Age: Mid-Upper primary) Highly recommended. Meet Lizzie . .
. who is Betty to her dad, Elizabeth to her kindly neighbour -
and to those in charge at Our Lady of the Sacred Wimple, a
troublemaker of the highest order. With flair reminiscent of Robin
Klein's Penny Pollard, Lizzie seems to continually blunder into one
scrape after another, usually with dire results, yet always with the
best of original intention. When she accidentally sets fire to
Sacred Wimple, Lizzie is politely asked to leave the school and so
begins a new experience of being homeschooled by her teacher mum.
While this is not quite the ordeal Lizzie was expecting, she does
run into some disturbing situations - the mystery of the unoccupied
house next door, her father's erratic behaviour and the trial of
being abandoned by her best friend. However, through a new approach
to important aspects of her young life, Lizzie begins to make some
advances in thinking responsibly with visibly improved results.
James Roy continues his deft touch for young readers with this
light-hearted novel, which delivers a topical and timely message
about a common mental illness - depression. Lizzie's family is a
very normal and recognisable one, living in suburbia - parents
working hard to maintain a very simple lifestyle, sometimes
struggling to do so. The relationships between Lizzie and the
adults in her life are handled with humour and realism.
Eminently suitable as a read-aloud, this novel is recommended highly
for children in mid to upper primary.
Sue Warren
Happy Valley by Patrick White
Text Publishing, 2012. ISBN 9781921922916.
(Age: Mature secondary - adult) Highly recommended. Appearing on
best-books-of-the-year lists, the new publication of Patrick White's
Happy Valley brings it back into print after a seventy year
hiatus. White was apparently concerned about charges of racism and
so limited its availability during his lifetime. It is a significant
work, not just because it is White's first novel; and it could form
a fascinating partnership with White's final, unfinished novel, The
Hanging Garden (Random House) for senior English study. Both
novels exude verdant symbolism as an atmospheric meter of emotion
and incident. Both novels validate the feelings and insights of
children and feature a friendship between a vulnerable boy and girl.
In Happy Valley, school-girl Margaret Quong is the enigmatic
daughter of an Anglo-Chinese father and Australian mother. Set in
the early 1930s, a tired, small-town racism exists, but hostility is
also easily turned onto anyone who destabilises the currents of the
ironically named Happy Valley. Newcomer, farm overseer, Clem Hagan,
emits a dangerous, hard sexuality. White skilfully introduces him
and then turns his focus onto a range of other town inhabitants.
Even though the lives of the other characters are gripping, we know
that Hagan's character is waiting on the edge, changing the dynamics
and likely to precipitate a tragedy.
Two of the featured families, the Hallidays and the Moriartys, seem
to be dissimilar; apart from teacher, Ernest Moriarty's asthma and
Hilda Halliday's consumptive cough but their spouses' affairs with
others make them incongruously alike. It is the children, Margaret
and Rodney Halliday, who recognise truth first. The adults must
later choose their own futures.
Patrick White's writing is laden with experimental devices. He
judiciously (some may disagree) uses stream-of-consciousness,
repetitions, unconventional word order in sentences and perfectly
formed and injected images. The writing techniques alone deserve
study and critique.
Joy Lawn
Clementine Rose and the Pet Day Disaster by Jacqueline Harvey
Series: Clementine Rose. Random House Australia, 2013. ISBN:
9781742755434. 160 pages.
Recommended for 6-8 year olds. This is the second book in Jacqueline
Harvey's series about Clementine Rose a five year old orphan who was
delivered in the back of a mini-van, in a basket of dinner rolls.
She now lives in warm loving home filled with colourful characters:
her mother Lady Clarissa Appleby, Digby Pertwhistle the butler (more
like a loving uncle), Lavender her teacup pig and Pharaoh, Aunt
Violet's Sphinx cat.
With such high hopes for her first day of school at Ellery Prep,
Clementine Rose wakes up at four o'clock, gets dressed and makes her
own breakfast. She knows she'll learn how to read, tell the time and
do numbers by the end of this day!
Of course things don't quite turn out as she expected. To Clementine
Rose's chagrin, her kindergarten teacher is Mrs. Ethel Bottomley, a
martinet with high standards, strong views on discipline and class
management. The teacher's grandson Angus Archibald is placed next to
Clementine and continually bullies her during lessons.
The novel culminates with all the dramas of Pet Day. Forgotten
clothes for the teacup pig, helping Aunt Violet with her runaway cat
provide opportunities for Clementine Rose to show her strength of
character.
This book is recommended for confident readers from ages 6-8 years
of age, who enjoy school and family stories. Jacqueline Harvey is
also the author of the Alice-Miranda series that also
follows a female protagonist and her boarding school adventures. J.
Yi's black and white line drawings enhance the reader's enjoyment of
the novel.
Rhyllis Bignell
A week in winter by Maeve Binchy
Orion Publishing Group, 2012. ISBN 978 1 4091 1400 0. 361
pages
Highly recommended. Stone house has been turned into a Hotel and I
can just see it now set high on the cliffs on the west coast of
Ireland, overlooking the windswept Atlantic ocean with its big
dining room where the guests enjoy wonderful home cooked meals and
huge log fires to keep them all warm and cosy.
Each chapter reveals a little about the guests who spend a week in
winter at Stone house. The characters are very real we read that
Henry and Nicola are burdened with a terrible secret, while cheerful
nurse Winnie finds herself on the holiday from hell. John has
arrived on an impulse after he missed a flight at Shannon; eccentric
Freda claims to be a psychic - and a part-time hairdresser. Then
there's Nora, a silent watchful older woman who seems ready to
disapprove at any moment.
Sadly I read that A Week in Winter is Maeve's last novel,
completed days before she died in July 2012. Her husband, Gordon
Snell, agreed that publication should go ahead in the hope that all
her readers will enjoy seeing her weave her magic once again. We
have lost a wonderful story-teller, but her books will always be
with us.
I found this feel good novel a very easy read and certainly enjoyed
the characters. Maeve has such a wonderful way with words whereby
one can visualise the characters and the beautiful scenery. Highly
recommended: no wonder it is the number one bestseller.
Gabriela Weber
