The Underwater Fancy-Dress Parade By Davina Bell and Allison Colpoys, Scribe Publications, 2015. Sometimes it’s hard to be brave. Sometimes you get that feeling. Sometimes you’re just not ready… until, one day, you are. What do you do when you don’t want to do something? On the first page, we meet Alfie. Alfie looks sad and down, and his head and shoulders are slumped. His toy rabbit is slumped on the shelf. Even his sweater hangs mournfully from the chest of drawers. Alfie’s got that feeling. He knows that feeling, that familiar feeling, that not nice feeling. He’s even had bad dreams about feeling trapped and carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders again. Too shy for friends, Alfie confides in the cowboys on his wallpaper. To help Alfie become brave about going to an oceanic fancy-dress party, his mother takes him on a special day out to the aquarium. There Alfie meets a little clownfish. Perhaps because the clownfish was hiding when Alfie spotted him, it reminded him of how he feels sometimes. His mum explains to him that sometimes fish just hide away too. I think this makes it ok for Alfie to feel this way too. The…

Day Dreamers By Emily Winfield Martin ‘How do you find day dreams? You don’t need to search for secret doors or magic words to speak. Your imaginings will carry you anywhere you seek…’ Day Dreamers is a journey of imagination. A lovely look at the magical possibilities of the imagination in everyday situations. I think this book encourages children to use their imaginations in everyday situations, for example, imagining the sound of turning pages in a book as though it were actually the sound of griffin wings. I actually preferred her book, The Wonderful Things You Will Be to this one.

My Two Blankets By Irena Kobald and Freya Blackwood, Little Hare, 2014. ‘Cartwheel has moved to a place that is so strange to her, she no longer feels like herself. This is a story about new ways of speaking, new ways of living, new ways of being.’ In My Two Blankets, we travel with Cartwheel across countries to a new world far from the world she grew up in and is familiar with. She feels isolated and alone, and goes home and hides under her old blanket, where she feels safe. She mentions that when she went out, it felt like she was ‘standing under a waterfall of strange sounds. The waterfall was cold. It made me feel alone.’ Her old blanket is adorned with familiar objects from her homeland. Then, one day when she is in the park, she makes a friend. Her new friend begins to teach her new words, and as Cartwheel grapples with her new language, she doesn’t feel so much like she is under a waterfall anymore. She soon begins to weave herself a new blanket encapsulating the words and images of her newfound language. And, as she learned the new words she ‘whispered them…

Happy Pants: Why is Mummy so sad? By Heather Gallagher and Liz McGrath, Wombat Books, 2014. ‘When Mummy wears her happy pants we build sandcastles, go out for babycinos and have lots and lots of cuddles But when she comes home with baby Darcy, her happy pants stay in her wardrobe…’ A heartfelt story about one child’s experience of his mother who is suffering from postnatal depression. This is a highly relatable story for children who have recently experienced the introduction of a new baby to the home, and especially if their mother is suffering from depression. Happy Pants broaches the often taboo topic of postnatal depression with kindness, and it has a positive ending that will offer hope to your child if he or she is in the same situation. Colourful watercolour images adorn the book, and although the style is quite naive, I think they would appeal to children because of the soft vibrancy of the pages. Happy Pants is a great book for fathers to read to their children, but also mothers. There is an informative page at the end of the book explaining what post-natal depression is and how common it is in new mothers and…

Starting School By Jane Godwin and Anna Walker, Penguin Viking, 2013. ‘Tim, Hannah, Sunita, Joe and Polly are all off to school for the first time. Would you like to meet them and see how they go?’ Starting School takes us through all the different parts that make up starting at school, from the first day and meeting other students and the teacher, to an orientation around the school and in the classroom. The story concludes with a question, ‘What do you like about school?’. This can open a conversation between your and your child to discuss their experiences when they have started school, but could equally start as a conversation about what they think they might like about starting school if they haven’t already. Know the rules in school. Put your hand up. Listen to the teacher. Look after your things. Don’t run in the classroom. There are look and find elements on the opening endpapers, where we are introduced to the names of the children in the class as well as the teacher, and we see all of their favourite things; possibly what they’ve brought to school on their first day and have in their desks. The closing…

Marlo Can Fly By Robert Vescio and Sandra Temple, Wombat Books, 2013. Everyone expects Marlo to fly, but she would rather slither like a snake, hop like a kangaroo and swim like a crocodile. But when someone needs her help, can she still rise to the challenge? I don’t know about you, but I love a magpie…and what a delightful little magpie story this is. Marlo Can Fly is about Marlo Magpie, a little bird who just wanted to be different. Marlo thinks she doesn’t need to fly like the other birds, so instead she sings through the forest. Marlo really wants to be different. Kandy the kookaburra tries to explain that Marlo is a bird, and birds fly…it’s just what they do. Marlo meets several Australian animals and reptiles in the bush and tries to mimic their movements, but fails each time. Then she meets Kev the baby koala who has lost his mother and really needs Marlo’s help. How does Marlo help little Kev? Read Marlo Can Fly and find out! This story encourages kids to explore and discover themselves to find out who they really are and where they fit in this world.

Living with Mum and Living with Dad: My Two Homes By Melanie Walsh, Walker Books, 2012. ‘My mum and dad don’t live together anymore so sometimes I live with my mum and sometimes with my dad.’ Separation and divorce are always difficult subjects to broach with young children. This is the ideal picture book for very small children to help them understand and navigate the changes are or will be occurring during parental divorce. Living with Mum and Living with Dad: My Two Homes is a lift-the-flap book that offers a level of interactivity with things to find under flaps within the pages. The flaps are also used as a device to help show some of the differences between the child’s two homes. Living with Mum and Living with Dad: My Two Homes aims to reassure your child that while there may be changes and differences to life moving forward, everything is going to be ok. Even with the differences, there are still some things that remain familiar, such as the child’s favourite toys that she can take to both houses, the love of both parents, and the extended family. The love of both parents equally is a common theme throughout…

Magpie By Luke Davies and Inari Kiuru, ABC Books, 2010. A father and son embark on an epic journey, an intrepid adventure. Magpie attacks are a strong reality in Australia during the springtime. This story is based on a mostly true story of the author’s experience of being swooped by a magpie as a youth. Yes, another story about swooping magpies! In this adaptation, we follow the main character and his father (both dogs) down ‘Minnamurra Avenue. The bush. The creek. Looking for Magpie. It depicts a lovely relationship between a father and son, where the father will go to great lengths to show his son that he loves him and will protect him from bad things. Many pages occur without text, which allows your child to use their imagination to fill in the blanks.

Mum and Dad Glue By Kes Gray and Lee Wildish, Hodder Children’s Books, 2000. ‘A little boy searches for a pot of parent glue to stick his mum and dad’s marriage back together. But he soon realises that even though his parents may be broken, their love for him is not.’ Mum and Dad Glue is a clever rhyming story of the little boy’s journey to the realisation that, while he can’t put his parents back together, he can still be happy. In the early pages, the illustrations show cracks through everything; the car, the soccer ball, the skateboard, the house, and the brick wall. The words read, ‘Mum and dad are broken…’ The little boy engages on a mission to find a glue that he can use to fix his parents. You can feel the desperation of the child who is frantically trying to think of ways to mend his parent’s marriage. The gentle rhyme helps in softening an often difficult and painful subject for your child. A common thing that we see with children of broken marriages is that the child often blames themselves. This little boy is no different. He battles with wondering if he is the…

Magpie’s Gift By Rebecca Johnson and Steve Parish, Pascal Press, 2006. Mr Magpie searches high and low for items that he can give to Mrs Magpie to help build a nest. Magpie’s Gift brings us a lovely magpie story. I really quite enjoyed this story, even though it is a bit twee, but it also quite sweet. Mr Magpie finds a piece of blue wool that he wants to give to Mrs Magpie as a gift for her nest, but a bowerbird gets to it first. A friendly numbat advises Mr Magpie that he should try asking the bowerbird for the wool, but says he should take something blue to exchange for the wool. Mr Magpie takes a blue clothes peg and manages to succeed in obtaining the blue wool for his wife. I think there is some gender confusion as sometimes on pages talking about Mrs Magpie, a male magpie is photographed. Overall a sweet story with great pictures of magpies.