The Wind in the Willows Graphic Novel by Russell Punter and Kenneth Grahame. Illus. by Xavier Bonet
Usborne, 2021. ISBN: 9781474968867. (Age:8+)
In 1908 British author brought children the story of Mole, Rat and Badger and their efforts to reform the friendly but conceited and mischievous Mr Toad of Toad Hall who is fascinated by the latest fads, particularly motorcars. But Toad is not the best of drivers and after many mishaps, finds himself in prison for 20 years for stealing a car. Even though he eventually escapes, during his absence his magnificent Toad Hall has been overtaken by weasels and stoats, and it becomes a battle to get it back.
Now, over 100 years on, it has been interpreted in graphic novel format to appeal to a new generation of readers, offering them an introduction to this classic story which has delighted so many before. This is the latest in this series which includes The Wizard of Oz and The Three Musketeers which opens up a new world of literature from past generations, inspiring independent readers to seek out the original versions. It is fast-paced and funny and has all the ingredients that have enabled it to endure for so long.
This book tells the adventure had by one boy with his Paw and what happened after a terrible accident with the Cob and Co coach that he was driving. All of the passengers on the coach on the fateful trip have their own secrets and reasons why they wanted to get to Goulburn on the night coach. Jem had some hard decisions to make to ensure that all of the passengers on the Cob and Co coach arrived at their destination along with the ever important mail bags. He found an inner strength that helped on his journey. As the passenger’s secrets are slowly revealed the layers in the story continue to unfold and make for a story that you can’t put down.
The historical information at the end of the book added to the story and the fact that the idea for the story came from the Henry Lawson poems that are in the back of the book added another interesting level to this story. It could be used as a teaching text encouraging students to choose a poem and using this to write their own story based on the characters and places in the poem.
I highly recommend this book.
Themes Cobb & Co., Australia - History - 1851-1901, Transport.
Written in a friendly conversational style, with lots of highlighted phrases and graphics, this book is targeted primarily at budding young sportspeople, but could appeal to all young achievers, providing inspiration and advice to keep heading towards their goals. Rashford writes that it is the book that he wishes he could have read when he was young.
Coming from an underprivileged background, Rashford went on to become a stunning football player for Manchester United, staunch campaigner for school lunch programs, and ambassador for the importance of books and reading.
The advice and encouragement he provides could be applied not only to sports, but to other academic endeavours and to teenage social action groups. He instills a strong sense of individual self-esteem and the drive to persevere. The writing is bold, to-the-point, and includes chapter summaries and practical tasks to keep on target. With his image on the front cover, it could be just the right book to be picked up by a reluctant reader or an adolescent in need of a confidence boost.
Themes Sport, Self-esteem, Perseverance, Social action.
This non-fiction newcomer to the area of children’s feelings and mental health is designed and presented in an appealing and popular format to engage young readers. The comic-strip illustrations are easy to read and successful in portraying each different scenario. The feelings covered include anxiety, sadness, jealousy, shyness, fear, hate, loneliness and anger. Each double page spread follows the same layout with an explanation of the feeling being discussed, a comic-strip story with text underneath and a series of top tips from the character mentioned in the story.
The colourful and engaging illustrations show a diverse range of characters from different family and cultural backgrounds. There are two pages with children telling the reader what makes them happy which is followed by a double page of a First Aid Box for Feelings. The Dear Reader letter on the beginning endpapers from the author, Marcia Williams, gives a wise and thoughtful insight into feelings and keeping healthy. On the back endpapers is the index and a More Help information box with a UK child line link which could be easily covered over with a sticker highlighting the details of the Australian Kids Help Line.
A worthwhile addition to home, school and public library.
Pan Macmillan, 2021. ISBN: 9781529040418. (Age:Young adult and adult)
Marina is adopted, she has always known this but she also knows she was abandoned at birth, left in the foyer of a house on Streatham High Road nearly thirty years ago. When visiting a nearby client, whose book she is editing, she is drawn to the house and finds there is a flat to let in the run down mansion. On impulse she arranges to see the flat and decides to move there to find out more about the people who lived there in 1964 when she was abandoned. The narrative shifts to 17 year old Connie in April 1964, finding herself pregnant to boyfriend Johnny who has left to pursue his dreams of becoming an artist in Paris. It is a year since Connie’s mother died of cancer leaving her father bereft, retreating into the world of second hand books in his small shop so she has no one to confide in. The narrative shifts from Marina, who keeps her identity secret as she learns more about the people who lived in the flats, tracking down leads and considering possibilities, to Connie as she struggles with the fact of her pregnancy and what options are open to her, concealing her swelling body by binding the bump and wearing loose clothing. We slowly piece together their stories and those of the people in the house until their secrets are revealed.
Connie’s story is a sad reflection on the times and her vulnerability and Marina’s is one of someone who has enjoyed love and security from her adoptive parents who are there to support her as she tries to fit the missing piece into her life. I didn’t feel the house itself carried any great significance and the narrative was too slow paced for me. The denouement was anticipated yet sudden and incomplete. I felt that finding excuses for the perpetrator was a mistake. This may have appeal to young adult and adult readers of Quintana’s other books and lovers of women’s fiction.
Themes Identity, Adoption, Secrets, Teen pregnancy.
Sue Speck
Bots and bods : How robots and humans work, from the inside out by John Andrews
This is a fascinating book which explores the similarities and differences between humans and robots, particularly how the basic features of the human body, such as movement, the senses and thinking, are copied in bots.
As more and more of our lives are assisted by what were once the stuff of futuristic cartoon series like The Jetsons, performing everything from mundane chores to intricate surgery, this is an intriguing insight into just how one is translated into the other.
With its appealing layout and straightforward text, this is one that will appeal to anyone with a deeper interest in this technology (and thus is going straight to Miss Year 9) while there are extensive teachers' notes focusing on science and digital technologies for those in tears 4-8.
Publications from CSIRO are always original, fascinating and worthwhile and this is no exception.
Themes Robots, Human body, Technology, Science.
Barbara Braxton
Never grow up by Roald Dahl. Illus. by Quentin Blake
Never Grow up is a picture book inspired by the works of Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake. The actual writing is a collaboration between Al Blyth, an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, and Stella Gurney, who has worked as both a copywriter and an editor and now writes full time. They are an experienced and talented team who have captured the style of Dahl’s work incredibly well.
The story talks directly to the reader in the hope of guiding us to live the kind of life Dahl appreciated most, with magic, mischief and adventure galore and people who appreciate those who are not “run of the mill”. It celebrates adults who can hold on to all the childhood wonder of the world and push their skills to the limits by being bold and striving for the wackiest life possible.
The rhyme and rhythm of the book capture the Roald Dahl classics and combined with the familiar illustrations of Blake we could almost believe Dahl still lives. This book will be enjoyed by all fans of Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake.
Themes Growing up, Imagination, Children.
Gabrielle Anderson
Mina and the whole wide world by Sherryl Clark
University of Queensland Press, 2021. ISBN: 9780702263231. (Age:7+) Highly recommended.
Mina is looking forward to her move into her own room. She has collected a box together: a unicorn, books, a lamp and a globe she buys at a garage sale. Her father has painted the room just for her and she has some yellow curtains to put up. But most of all she longs to be alone, in a room of her own, away from her annoying brother Georgie. But one night her parents hit her with the news. A boy is coming to stay, someone who needs shelter for a little while. She is speechless with rage. When she must take him to school and have him sit with her in the classroom, she is less than generous, forgetting all the things her parents told her, trying to ignore him. But some of her class mates are teasing and rude towards him, and she finds that she in her turn is also teased. At first she is angry but after a while, she begins to see the boy with new eyes. She learns his name and the teacher gives the class a few facts about him. Mina realises that he probably cannot understand a lot of what goes on in the classroom and after he draws an illustration of his life, she begins to feel more empathy. She collects her pocket money to buy him a set of pencils and a sketchbook and earns his name: Azzama.
With seeing him afresh she take umbrage at the rudeness of one of the boys in the class, Oliver and hits him on the nose. This brings all the tension to a point where adults must intervene and Mina is admonished for her action. In the classroom Azzami displays the pictures he has made of his life’s story and all is resolved.
A touching story of empathy that develops when Mina begins to walk in Azzami’s shoes, the story will touch many readers with the feeling that they might have been like Mina, initially unkind to someone new. The wonderful story will encourage readers to reassess their own shortcomings when welcoming new students to the class, and make them aware that many are from vastly different places in this wide world. The allusion to Mina’s globe gives this story wings, as it takes the story out of the classroom to places beyond the children’s experience.
A verse novel, the tale is completed very quickly, students stopping to read again those lines which plumb depths of meaning, enhanced by the delightful illustrations, reflecting the emotional turmoil that is going on in Mina’s head.
Opening with a TS Elliot quote, ‘Footfalls echo in the memory down the passage which we did not take towards the door we never opened’ prepares the reader for a protagonist who channels the memories of a 15yr old convict boy who worked as a shepherd on his Grandparents’ sheep property. The convict Will, writes his memoir in the first person but Will’s story is told in the 3rd person.
Cameron Nunn, like Jackie French before him in The White Ship, gradually weaves two stories separated by 200 years in time. Events don’t begin in the outback. Will Richard’s mother takes her own life and his father shunts him and his sister to the countryside to live with his parents. Whereas, convict William Richards, is deported to Sydney for stealing a sheet of roofing lead before being indentured to McNeil’s sheep property. Modern-day Will’s grandfather is also named William Richards and Pa has also lived with the confusion and stigma of unlived memories that connect him to the long dead convict boy.
Historically accurate, given the author’s academic interests, the reader will feel the neglect, powerlessness, social injustices and the moral struggle of a thinking person coming of age in a harsh 18th century colony inhabited by brigands. William’s scholarly ambitions are balanced with his love interest in Sarah, the pastoralist’s daughter. His empathy for the treatment of indigenous people are truly before his time, or perhaps time is not linear? Similarly, today’s Will doesn’t dismiss his grandfather as mentally ill, like the rest of the family. Will keeps an open mind and methodically resolves what he cannot instantly understand.
Echo in the memory makes a good stimulus for discussing the lesser known history of our First Nations people who became refugees in their own land when the English colonized Australia. The superb characterization will make classroom discussion of Nunn’s specialty, Convict Children, both engaging and heartfelt. The novel is supported by Book Club notes and teacher's notes.
Themes Bildungsroman, Australian History, Convicts, Paranormal, Family.
CWA Dagger in the library Award winner Griffiths has written another mystery featuring Dr Ruth Galloway, a forensic archaeologist. Ivor March, a convicted murderer, has offered DCI Nelson a deal. He will tell him where the bodies of other young women are buried but only if he brings Ruth into the investigation to do the digging. She agrees to supervise the digging, but why is Ivor March so keen to have her back at the fens?
Ruth has made a change in her life. She has made a break with Norfolk and is now living in Cambridge with her daughter Kate and Frank. Although no longer the police’s forensic investigator she cannot resist the enticement of coming back to the place she loves and doing the work that she has been so good at.
The fens are always mysterious and the legend of the Lantern Men, who shine their lights and lure travellers into the marshes to their deaths, is a frightening one. When the investigation finds that March and his friends had acted as Lantern Men, supposedly rescuing young women, suspects abound as another young woman is killed. March could not have done it as he is in prison, and this casts suspicion on the people who surrounded him at the house where they had all lived.
There is excitement and danger ahead for Ruth in this engrossing and clever mystery that kept me guessing until the end. The lantern men was a suspenseful, nail-biting read, not just for the mystery but for the relationships described, and I look forward to following Ruth’s exploits in The night hawks, the next in this outstanding series.
Themes Mystery, Norfolk, Legends, Murder.
Pat Pledger
While you're sleeping by Mick Jackson. Illus. by John Broadley
Pavilion, 2021. ISBN: 9781843654650. (Age:4+)
Night time. Time to snuggle down under the covers, think briefly about tomorrow and drift off to the land of sweet dreams.
But night is not a time of peace and quiet for all. There is much that happens. Weather changes, animals hunt and there are many many workers who ensure that the wheels of modern life keep turning, and on the other side of the world children are going about their daytime life.
With its highly detailed imagery, which are fully explored in the excellent teachers' notes, this book introduces the young reader to another world which exists side by side with their own.
This world of the night-time worker will either acknowledge what they already know because they have a family member who works then (and thus they see their own lives in print), or expose them to a whole new concept helping them to understand how the world works and appreciate those who make it so. Either way, it opens up a realm of possibilities to explore from children sharing their own experiences to investigating what causes night and darkness. Starting with a focus on things that are close to the child, it gradually encompasses a broader perspective to show that there is always much life and activity happening somewhere, and even though they might be asleep another child will be sitting in class. Perfect for this year's CBCA Book Week theme.
This is an original concept that will capture the imagination with its intriguing cover - why is there a bed floating over the town? - and the calm, undramatic text will soothe and comfort.
Stepping inside the story of Meixing, the young Chinese migrant, we are drawn into the reality of her circumstances and her sadness, as well as in her magical imagination, as she copes in the half-light of living as a new migrant. This is both a story of coping and resilience, but also an opportunity to develop empathy for those who struggle with the weight of expectation as the hopes of their non-English speaking family are placed on their young shoulders. Meixing’s life in her new home is almost immediately turned upside down by tragedy, but she is able to escape into the imagination-charged magic of the glasshouse in her unruly garden and into the arms of the magically ‘alive’ house (that she names ‘Big Scary’). Her next-door neighbours, also new migrants, but from Vietnam and therefore still foreign to her, are the warmest and most welcoming neighbours and their son Kevin becomes a friend despite some fraught moments.
This is a very different migrant story, with cultural background woven within fantasy elements, but with the most poignant voice and melancholy of the young main character. The book is written as a second person narrative, inviting the reader to step inside the shoes and the pain of the migrant’s experience. It is hard to imagine the experience of migration and the unkindnesses and isolation that must be endured because of language and cultural barriers, but this story gives a real insight into how difficult it might be, and also the incredible resilience required by the young children who must adjust quickly to their new circumstances and also often take on ‘adult’ responsibilities in their ‘new-world’. This book will bring tears to your eyes. It is almost too heart-rending for young readers, but its power is in the opportunity to promote empathy and to see the value of imagination.
Themes Migration, Grief and loss, Imagination, Migrant experience, Chinese and Buddhist culture.
Spread across the inside of this book cover, front and back, is the image of the ‘Blue Poles’ painting by Jackson Pollock. And it is the painting that tells us the story. You might think that is bizarre, but it works. The narrator opening Part One is the painting itself, telling of its creation by the artist, the view from the barn-studio, the people it was sold to, the places it was hung, and then ultimately its purchase by Gough Whitlam, then Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam stood for a policy of social reform, free medical care, no-fault divorce, end to the Vietnam War, free university education, Aboriginal land rights, and . . . funding for the Arts. His purchase of ‘Blue Poles’ ignited conflicting views around the country.
But the painting also has other memories, of Pollock drunk, with a knife, pressing against his wife, the artist Lee Krasner. At this point the narrative is taken up by Alyssa, an art conservator, who does not admire Pollock, who researches the neglected women artists of the era, and who struggles herself with the societal expectations of woman as wife and mother. She researches the women artists who painted in Pollock’s shadow.
This is such an intriguing book! It reminds us of the amazing achievements of Whitlam, the visionary politician, but at the same time, interrogates the world of art that failed to give due recognition to the women artists of the time, and makes us consider again the imbalance of power and status between men and women, still relevant today.
I would recommend this book for students of both art and politics.
Themes Blue Poles, Art, Politics, Feminism.
Helen Eddy
The book of Australian trees by Inga Simpson. Illus. by Alicia Rogerson
This beautifully presented book draws the reader in from first glance at its appealing cover with trees surrounding the gold embossed title to the endpapers showcasing seeds and leaves from various trees. The opening page gives information about Australian trees, how they have changed over years, how many have adapted to their environment and their importance in Earth’s ecosystems. There are fourteen trees discussed in the book, each having its own double page spread with information centred on one page and striking illustrations on the next. The information presented is easy to understand and provides the reader with interesting facts about where the particular tree grows, a description of its colour, shape, height and how long the tree can live for. For example the Karri can live for around 300 years and there is one in the Greater Beedelup National Park that is thought to be 400 years old. Each tree has its own unique features and these are thoughtfully explained alongside other engaging information about the tree. The Antarctic Beech tree once grew all over Antarctica when it was joined to Australia, New Zealand and South America. It eventually moved north as the south became too cold. However during the bushfires in 2019-2020 many perished in the Gondwana Rainforests as unlike eucalypts, they have not adapted to survive fire and will not grow back.
This book would make a thoughtful addition to any school of public library as well as a perfect gift for those who love trees and plants.
The bright and colourful cover design of this new dinosaur book may trick the reader into thinking it is a fiction picture book however there is surprise in store. This book is full of facts about all different types of dinosaur related material and presented in a humorous and visually appealing manner. The end papers have vibrant cartoon-type drawings of all kinds of creatures from the time of dinosaurs. The book begins with a do you love dinosaurs section then warns the reader that before they turn the page there are ten fun dinosaur rules to be obeyed including “if you want to be in the veggie dino gang, then eat your greens!” Each double page spread focuses on one particular category of dinosaur: fearsome hunters, gentle giants, leaf loving veggies, armoured dinosaurs, the raptors, dino fossils, babysaurus and of course Tyrannosaurus Rex, who has his very own spread turned sideways to fit him in. At the end there is a dino sports day which measures how fast the more common dinosaurs are as well as dino neighbours which talks about other creatures who lived at that time. There is also a dino hall of fame which shows a picture and then fast facts about the chosen dinosaur. Each page has information presented in different fonts spread out in segments amongst the lively illustrations and humorous speech bubbles.
This will be a popular read for children in a school or public library as well as a shared read at home for younger children.
