Chip By Kylie Howarth, Five Mile Press, 2016. Chip would do anything for fish and chips, but has he gone too far with his newly hatched plan? With a secret plan up his sleeve, Chip gathers his friends and they begin to practice and perfect their moves. The book has some interesting approaches in that there is one fold-out page, and one page that converts from landscape to portrait. Any child who has eaten fish and chips on the beach will relate to this story. The author/illustrator has also created teacher’s notes and a colouring sheet. Awards Shortlisted for The Picture Book of the Year 2017 by Children’s Book Council of Australia.  

Hattie Helps Out By Jane Godwin, Davina Bell and Freya Blackwood, Allen and Unwin, 2016. ‘It’s a busy day at Hattie’s house. There’s a lot to do before Dad’s birthday party. Hattie is being very helpful, until it’s time for her afternoon nap. Hattie’s not even sleepy! But Mama looks tired. Very tired…’ Hattie has some very big ideas about helping Mama out with the party preparations. One day Hattie Helps Out at home. She is a great helper around the house until it is time for a nap. Hattie says she is too old to sleep in the daytime, but Mama insists. Who falls asleep, do you think? Mama falls asleep, and Hattie watches her for a while before deciding that she will help out greatly by ticking off the list of things Mama had said she needed to do before the party. Meanwhile, baby Lottie, Hattie’s younger sibling, has been sleeping in the washing basket while Hattie and Mama were having their rest in bed. Hattie slips seamlessly into the roleplay of mother of the house as she tidies and arranges, and even complains of not having ‘time for a crying baby today’. The authors have perfectly captured…

T-Veg The story of a carrot-crunching dinosaur By Smriti Prasadam-Halls and Katherina Manolessou, Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 2015. A laugh-out-loud tale of a dinosaur who dares to be different. When I first picked this book up off the shelf I wasn’t too sure what I was going to find in the pages; however, I was very smartly entertained by what I found! I absolutely LOVE this book! The rhyme is effortless, the illustrations are childlike and fun, and the story is action-packed and entertaining. T-Veg takes you on a journey through the life of Reginald, a young Tyrannosaurus Rex, who unlike the rest of his T-Rex dinosaur family and friends who are known carnivores, is vegetarian. Reginald ate BROCCOLI, Reginald at BEANS. Reginald ate bowls and bowls of GARLIC, GRAPES and GREENS. Reg grows tired of the other T-Rexes making fun of him, so he packs his dino-sack and leaves home in search of some herbivorous dinosaurs who he believes will make better friends. However, when he finds the ‘herbies’ he runs excitedly towards them, which scares them all off and they run away from him. His family and friends were missing him, so they went in search of Reg….

The Wonderful Things You Will Be By Emily Winfield Martin, Random House New York, 2015. ‘This is the first time There’s ever been you, So I wonder what wonderful things You will do…’ The Wonderful Things You Will Be is a New York Times #1 Best Seller and is the sort of message every parent would want to give their child! This delightful book is full of hope and wonder at the thought of who your child will grow up to be. There is a great mystery in the very question of the future and how it will unfold in anyone’s life, but especially in the future of one so young and unmolded. The illustrations in The Wonderful Things You Will Be are beautifully painted using soft colours, with an almost antique feel to them. The endpapers are really cute, showing lots of different looking babies, while in the pages of the book itself, those babies can be recognised as older versions of themselves doing wonderful things. There is a big double-page spread offering many different types of whimsical and magical things that your child could grow up to be. This book can help generate conversations about what your child…

The Toast Tree By Corina Martin and Fren Martins, Magabala Books, 2015. Ella and Mia live in a small dusty town surrounded by the sea. When their grandfather brings home squares of delicious toast picked from a magical tree growing int he sand dunes, they set off to look for the very special tree. Grandpa has access to a magic toast tree and he surprises Ella and Mia with delicious honey toast when he returns from work every afternoon. The toast is delicious and tastes better than any toast they’ve ever tasted. They love it when Grandpa brings home the toast and they want to know where he gets it from. ‘The toast tree grows in the sand dunes,’ he tells them. The girls decide to search for the toast tree themselves, but instead of finding the toast tree, they discover a flower that tastes like honey. Grandpa sees them and scolds them, and tells them the magic sill stop if they find the tree. Because the girls don’t want the magic to stop, they leave the flowers alone. If your child has ever dreamed of a magic tree that bears their favourite food, they will enjoy this story. The Toast…

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…

Magpie Learns a Lesson By Sally Morgan and Ezekiel Kwaymullina, and illustrated by Tania Erzinger, Omnibus Books, Scholastic, 2015. ‘Two friends, Magpie and Brown Falcon, have different talents. But magpie is cross that she can’t fly like Brown Falcon and plays tricks on her friend.’ What a naughty little magpie this one is! Magpie Learns a Lesson, a very big lesson indeed! Two birds; two sides of a story. Magpie and Brown Falcon share the same forest, and one might call them friends; however, magpie has a different view. If you’re familiar with the story of the boy who cried wolf, then you’ll understand this story. It has a hint of tall poppy syndrome too, because magpie tries to bring Brown Falcon down. Brown Falcon looks up to Magpie. He loves the warble of this songbird and enjoys listening to it through the forest. Brown Falcon admires Magpie and rejoices in his songs, while Magpie if filled with envy of the great heights Brown Falcon can soar to, and the distances he can see from up there. Magpie is so jealous of his friend the Brown Falcon, that he tricks him repeatedly to make him feel bad. He puts out traps…

Dotty and the Magpie By Jackie Wells and Dana Brown, Little Steps Publishing, 2015. Dotty the Dalmatian wishes she was brightly coloured! Dotty and the Magpie is a delightful little book about a dalmatian dog who wishes that her spots were many different brightly coloured spots. One day she meets a magpie who takes her out into the world to see all the different things around the town that are black and white. Together Dotty and the Magpie walk over a zebra crossing, visit a racetrack and attend an orchestral performance where the pianist plays on black and white keys. Finally, they visit the aquarium where Dotty meets a black and white killer whale. When they return home, Dotty is no longer full of sighs and is met by a huge surprise. This journey into the world helps Dotty appreciate the colours that she has, so that she is happy with who she is and what she has, and doesn’t want to be something else. I think this is a strong message to send to kids to help them accept themselves for who they are, because let’s face, you can’t be anyone you’re not!  

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…