RSPCA Bumper Book of Pets by Lex Hirst - book review

We weren't a 'pet family' when I was growing up and even now that I'm the parent we still don't have any animals (mostly out of laziness).

But if we were going to get a pet the RSPCA Bumper Book of Pets would be a brilliant place to start our research because it is just so sensible.

The first section of the book is all about common pets and deals with everything from horses to ferrets. It has a check list of things to think about before you get a pet and then, animal by animal, talks about cost, size, accommodation and bedding, how long they live and so much more.

Further back in the book there is also a section on farmyard animals and wildlife which has lots of pictures and information.

The very back section is called Fun Stuff and has jokes and activities that animal mad kids would really enjoy.

Basically, if you have a child that is into animals this book would definitely be a winner.

Who'll love it: Animal mad, primary school aged kids, plus it would be a really good resource for any family trying to decide what kind of pet to get.
Cost: $19.95
Publisher: Random House Australia

Dinosaur Zoom by Penny Dale - book review

I nearly forgot to review this book. I try pretty hard to keep all my review copies in one place but Dinosaur Zoom! disappeared from my pile the day it arrived and has been living in Wild Man's room ever since!

When I first read Dinosaur Zoom! by Penny Dale I thought it was a little bit simple because it doesn't call the dinosaurs by name in the text of the book (although there are pictures and names of the dinosaurs on the front end papers, and pictures and names of the cars they drive on the back end papers) but I was wrong.

Wild Man loves this book. We have read it over and over and over again and he still loves it and requests it often.

The first half of the book is about different dinosaurs, driving different vehicles, racing to get somewhere.

There is a definitely sense of anticipation about where they are going and why they are racing, plus there are lots of cars and dinosaurs to look at ... little boy heaven.

Then the dinosaurs all arrive at a picnic place in the forest and it turns out they are organising a surprise birthday party.

We yell out 'surprise' at the appropriate moment and Wild Man reacts to this part as though the surprise party was for him.

It's all very exciting and we spend ages talking about the the detail of the pictures - what might be in the box on the back of the tractor, what party food we would eat first if we were there, which is the best present and so much more.

It is the illustrations that make this such a fantastic book for little people, particularly dinosaur and car mad little boys. They are bright, clear and friendly, filled with action, detail and excitement.

The story is also good - simple and clear - with lots of repetition of words which kids tend to love.

All in all, this one is a winner. I can't imagine that there is a little boy alive who wouldn't love it.

A board book edition will be published early next year, which would be a perfect present for any tiny little man. Very exciting!

Who'll love this: Boys aged two to four.
Cost: $24.99
Publisher: Allen and Unwin  

Azzi In Between by Sarah Garland - book review

This book moved me to tears and if you are looking for a way to start talking to your kids about refugees and how lucky they are to be growing up in a safe, peaceful country this is it.

Azzi in Between is about a young girl called Azzi. Her life is happy but she lives in a country that is at war and every day that war is getting closer and closer to her home.

One night Azzi and her parents receive news that they are in terrible danger and must flee their home immediately. Azzi’s Grandma has to stay behind.

Azzi and her parents eventually find their way on to a boat and come to a new country. They are safe but everything is confusing. They are lonely, poor and so worried about Grandma.

Gradually they learn to live in the new country and make their lives there.

Although it is the shape of a picture book Azzi In Between in actually more a coloured graphic novel in style and is definitely not for preschoolers. It is more for seven to 12 years olds.

It’s a great story, Azzi is so brave and hopeful, and Sarah Garland's pictures do a brilliant job of conveying the terror of Azzi’s situation, the family’s despair as they try to understand their new life and the gradual dawning of hope in their new country.

Perhaps there is no single right way of dealing with refugees coming to Australia but reading Azzi In Between does a lot to persuade you that, whatever they are running from, they certainly need our compassion.

The book is endorsed by Amnesty International.

Who’ll love it: Kids aged seven to 12 who want to learn about the world or who just love a really good adventure story. The older they are the more they’ll understand the bigger picture behind the story.

Cost: $29.95

Publisher: Walker Books Australia

On the Farm - Q&A with author and illustrator Roland Harvey

Author and illustrator Roland Harvey has released another hilarious book in his illustrated holiday adventure series.

For those who haven't seen the books they are quirky, funny and very Australian.

Previous titles include At the Beach, In the City and In the Bush, and you could easily spent hours just discovering all the little stories included in the illustrations.

Roland was kind enough to answer some of my questions about his new book and how he works.

1) Your "At the ..." series has a very Australian feel (and sense of humour). Is that something that is important to you?

THE most important thing. I dearly love the Australian landscape and hope that people learn to "see" it in all its' subtlety, from the smallest flower to the patterns of the vast inland; its' colours and textures and the amazing flora and fauna we have which is quite different to anywhere else. I want to see it understood, appreciated and preserved.

The humour is just me really, noticing ridiculous things and playing with words and shapes. I notice odd-shaped people and odd-shaped attitudes.

2) Do you sometimes find yourself laughing out loud when you are writing and illustrating your books?

When a good idea hits, maybe. Or a totally unplanned joke jumps out at me. Or a really nice double meaning or word- play.

Much of what I do is from the subconscious and quite unplanned. I like the twists and turns when they occur. It is rewarding when something come out and you really don't know where it came from. It just seems to write itself as you go. Like the little poem:

"A sheep is a sheep is a sheep,
Unless it's a goat, of course.
You can milk it, or shear it or count it to sleep,
But to ride it it should be a horse."

And I laugh when a new meaning for a word pops up:
"Coincidental:  When two people have exactly the same teeth."

3) Which comes first for you - the illustrations or the text? 

It can happen either way. Sometimes I'll be mucking up a picture, so I'll sit down and write a bit of text and then do a different picture. The result will be quite different. My brain surprises me all the time, but it is also capable of locking me down. Often ideas for other books come as I'm working on an illustration.

4) Many of your illustrations are very detailed. Do they take you a long time to draw? 

Not if I am familiar with the subject. I love inventing places. Often as the place takes shape, I discover things I didn't intend to do, and characters just come out of doorways and I watch them with great fascination. It is very easy to  disappear into an illustration and start re-writing the story without realising it. That's probably why you are likely to see things in a picture that make no sense at all.

It is a very different matter if I have to research a subject, as I think I am a bit obsessed with accuracy in a funny sort of way. Eg. the illustration for 'Thomas, World's Sickest Man" (Sick As, The history of Medicine; Dr. Gael Jennings) took less than an hour, but the research took six weeks. The river camping page in "In the Bush" is very detailed but I am familiar with the place and it only too a day or so to do the pic. Of course there is a lot of physical work in colouring, but once I get going I am pretty fast. Don't look too closely, though.

It also slows down when I have to draw a place from a different angle and it has to look like the same place. I have to draw a map. My worst nightmare is trying to draw something/somewhere that I haven't actually seen, like some of the illos in "All the Way to W.A.

5) Tell us about your Uncle Kev. 

Uncle Kev is a sort of amalgam of two of my dear friends, and me.

The real Kev is my brother-in-law, who is very capable and built his own mudbrick house and restored (beautifully) the Jaguar XK140 in the shed picture. He used to take adventure safaris through Africa in the '70s. He looks a bit like my Kev. He will be at the launch, and I will twist his arm to bring the Jag.

The other one is my mate 'Bucko', who grew up in Kenya as the son of a genuine old fashioned missionary, and has been trying to break out ever since. He is totally gung-ho, and as an Outdoor Ed teacher, imperilled the lives of half the kids in Victoria. He's a great bloke though. He got me interested in Great Adventures in the outdoors. And me... I'm the bit that invents things that don't work, and skis off cliffs and camps on ants nests.

Uncle Kev is absolutely fearless, incredibly well-meaning, and when it comes to ladies, very, very shy.

Who'll love this: Kids aged about five to ten, especially those who like to spent time pouring over pictures (there is so much to see in these ones)
Cost: $24.99
Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Unbored by Joshua Glenn and Elizabeth Foy Larsen - book review

On the whole, I don't like 'activity' books, especially ones that are designed to get kids away from the TV and computer.

Don't get me wrong, kids today spend way too much time in front of a screen (mine included) but the reason I don't like the books is that I think, on the whole, they are fairly patronising and don't actually appeal to the kids they are aimed at. 

They are more a collection of things that adults wish kids would do.

Seriously, how many 10 year old boys do you know who, on being told they need to turn the TV off, would grab a book, flick through it and decide have a paper aeroplane throwing competition?

Would they enjoy themselves if they did? Yes, almost definitely but in the real world I just don't think they are going to do it.

So, as you can imagine I was a bit sceptical about Unbored - The Essential Guide to Serious Fun but, to my surprise, I was really impressed with this book.

Here are just a few of the reasons I like it:

- It has things that kids will actually want to do, like the chapter on explosions or ways to decorate your sneakers. These aren't activities that adults want kids to do, these are things that kids find fun.

- It is not so deluded as to exclude computer and TV activities. Instead it encourages kids to diversify what they do on the computer and watch on TV. For example, it tells kids how to create a blog instead of just playing computer games. It also encourages kids to diversify the movies they watch and to help them do that it lists movies by genre - for example the page called 'Best Ever Sports Movies' includes The Freshman from 1925 and Real Steel from 2011.

- It is written in a really engaging way and you can tell from the first paragraph what each page is going to be about, so if it isn't your thing you can keep flicking.

- It has extracts from books and lots of interviews and interesting facts, so if you were to pick it up and flick through it you would almost definitely find a few things to read while you searched for an activity.

- The parlour style games it suggests actually do sound fun.

In fact, the thing that makes this book so fantastic is that it actually is a comprehensive collection of things that kids would like to do. 

The cover says Indoors/ Outdoors/ Online/ Offline and that really sums it up. From apps to hip hop songs, from geocaching (the world's biggest treasure hunt) to farting games there is something here for everyone.

To my surprise, Unbored actually IS a book that you could pick up when you are bored, flick through, and find something cool to do.

Who'll love it: Bored kids aged about nine and older.
Cost: $29.95
Published by: Bloomsbury

  

The Selfish Giant - Q&A with illustrator Ritva Voutila

'My own garden is my own garden,' said the Giant; 'anyone can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.' 

The Selfish Giant, Oscar Wilde's classic tale of forgiveness, melts my heart every time I read it.

This week illustrator Ritva Voutila releases a stunning new edition of the story. It is a truly moving story and Ritva's illustrations match it perfectly. 

Ritva was kind enough to answer some of my questions about her inspiration, her artwork and why she loves Wilde's story.

1. What made you choose to create this new edition of The Selfish Giant?

The suggestion came from the editor, Erica Wagner. The meeting was about trying to find a suitable book for me to illustrate. I had taken a number of my favourite beautifully illustrated children’s books with me. One of the books was a version of The Selfish Giant. Erica pointed to it saying: “Why not that?”, and I said: “Why not!”

2. This is obviously a story that you have loved. Do the illustrations reflect the way you picture the story in your mind when you read it?

I cannot remember. I first read the story when I was in my early teens and still living in my native Finland. I found it in my schoolbook called English Proficiency. It was the first piece of real literature that I read and translated from English to Finnish. I can only remember that I loved the beautiful style in which it was written. I became an Oscar Wilde fan immediately.

3. It is lovely to see such traditional illustrations. Can you tell me more about how you create them?

I work in oils on canvas. I build up the colour by using several transparent layers. It is a slow technique, but it allows me to achieve the depth and richness of colour the way I find most satisfying.

4. I love the illustrations of the giant. Is his appearance based on someone, or is he entirely from your imagination?

Whenever I read a fictional story my mind is immediately flooded with images. I seem to have very little control over them. This is how the general type of the giant was born. Next I needed to find a real life model who more or less would fit that type. I searched around and the result is a combination of a number of actors and other public figures, and above all my own husband.

5. Do you think that The Selfish Giant is a story for adults or children?

For both.

Who'll love this: Oscar Wilde fans, art fans and school aged kids.

Cost: $29.99

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Herman and Rosie by Gus Gordon - book review

Frankly, I'm a little bit in love with anyone who is called Gus Gordon. Surely this is the coolest name ever for an author (or the alter ego of some kind of funky super hero!).

I am also in love with the end papers of this book which are maps of New York and are just incredibly awesome.

But I'm assuming you don't buy kids books based on the author's name or the end papers (you should) so here is a little bit about the rest of Herman and Rosie.

Herman is a crocodile who plays the clarinet and likes watching films about the ocean.

Rosie is a goat (I think) who loves to sing and watch films about the ocean.

They live quite near each other is a big city that sometimes makes them feel like anything is possible, but often makes them feel lonely.

If I was writing a press release for this book I would say it is a story of New York, of music, of loneliness and of friendship.

For everyone else I would say that Herman and Rosie is a lovely book about being lonely and making a friend.

This would definitely be a useful tool in starting to talk to your kids about their emotions. The idea that you can feel lonely even while you are among lots of people and discussing the things that make Herman and Rosie happy would provide a great start to the conversation.

Th illustrations are lovely and convey the sense of isolation that a big city can bring perfectly.

There was a bidding war for the rights to Herman and Rosie and I can understand why. It is exactly the kind of book that would appeal to children's book publishers - whimsical and wistful with amazing emotion behind it especially, I would imagine, if you have ever been to New York.

It's interesting in that way - I sometimes wonder if kids get as much from these books as grown-ups who are still in touch with their sentimental inner child do. Maybe this is, in fact, a grown-ups book that kids will also enjoy.

It's hard to say. My kids certainly liked it and so did I.


Who'll love this: Older kids, perhaps 4-6 year olds, kids who struggle with feeling lonely, and anyone who loves New York!  
Cost: $24.95
Published by: Penguin Books Australia