Tintinnabula By Margo Lanagan and Rovina Cai, Little Hare, 2017. ‘In wild times and in wartime, in times of fear and illness, I go to Tintinnabula, where soft rains fall.’ The landscape is barren and bleak, with skeletal trees bending to the elements. Rain slices down on the ruins of a building; the chiaroscuro of shadows adding depth to the desolate. A small figure approaches a large opening in the ruins leading to nowhere…or is it? Tintinnabula opens with dark and frightening creatures dominating the small figure of a girl in the bottom corner of the page. They could be inner demons or outer demons. They are very visible though. The illustrations are haunting and emotive and move directionally through the pages. The girl running, tearing, in an effort to be free of the demons on her tail. Always, there is a glimpse of a lighter place, a safer place, but it is far from an immediate reach. And still, the demons come. A feather. A whisp. The faceless character runs through pages following a white bird, until we finally meet her face-to-face, when she arrives in Tintinnabula. The overall colour palette changes from dark and red, to light and…

A Walk In The Bush By Gwyn Perkins, Affirm Press, 2017. A Walk In The Bush will take you and your child on a journey through the Australian bush. Grandad can’t find Iggy. He looks everywhere for him. When he finally finds him, he takes him on a journey into the Australian bush looking for wildlife. Together we meet many different native birds and learn their bird calls, and bump into the odd wallaby. There are also caterpillar messages on trees! This whole book is truly like the experience of walking through the Australian bush. Awards Winner: The Picture Book of the Year, Children’s Book Council of Australia, 2018.

Mopoke. By Philip Bunting, Scholastic, 2017. ‘This is a Mopoke. Mopoke loves peace and quiet. He is about to find out that you can’t always get what you want.’ Mopokes love the peace and quiet, but this little mopoke doesn’t really get much of that! Mopoke. is such a funny little story that even adults will enjoy it. Philip Bunting tells a tale with pictures and minimal text, but this book is definitely visually quirky with a hysterical tale to tell. Using as few words as possible, this author-illustrator has enjoyed a play on the word mopoke, and poked all manner of things! This book should become a classic. NB: A mopoke is a southern Australian boobook owl. It is Australia’s smallest and most common owl species. Awards Honours for The Picture Book of the Year 2018 by Children’s Book Council of Australia. Shortlisted for: Crichton Award for New Illustrators 2018 by Children’s Book Council of Australia. Longlisted for: Kate Greenaway Medal 2018. Indie Book Awards. Best Designed Children’s Illustrated Book 2018 by Australian Book Design Awards. Picture Book of the Year 2018 by Australian Book Industry Awards. Finalist for: Best Children’s Books 2017 by The Guardian. 

Rodney Loses It! By Michael Gerard Bauer and Chrissie Krebs, Scholastic Australia, 2017. ‘Rodney was a rabbit who loved nothing more than drawing. He never found it tiresome, tedious or boring. But then one day, disaster struck! The one thing Rodney feared, while working at his drawing desk his pen just… DISAPPEARED! ‘ Rodney Loses It! is by far and away one of my favourite reads in a long time. I LOVE THIS BOOK! Rodney loves to draw. He draws all day and all night. However, Rodney finds himself in all sorts of trouble when his favorite pen, Penny, goes missing. Follow Rodney’s journey as he searches high and low for Penny. I also love it when the illustrations show the reader something that the character in the story doesn’t know. Your child will know more than Rodney during this story, which is something that will delight children. A very clever read with a funny surprise ending! Download some teacher’s notes. View some literacy activities. Awards The Book of the Year: Early Childhood 2018 by Children’s Book Council of Australia.

Wolf Espionage By Elanor Parkinson and Dave Atze, Redgum Book Club, 2015. ‘Wold Espionage is a rollicking story of an undercover wolf named Wiliam whose ill-fated approach to espionage leads him to vegetarianism.’ Reminiscent of Wile E. Coyote, Wolf Espionage tells the tale of a wolf called William that lived on Wellwood Farm. William was so hungry that he decided to go undercover and try and find some tucker! He dresses up as different animals he finds on the farm and tries to befriend them, but they all whack him and poke him, because they know he isn’t really one of them. Wolf Espionage follows a days-of-the-week format where William the Wolf approaches different animals on different days of the week. William discovers that if he disguises himself as an apple or a peapod, then he doesn’t get whacked or poked, and he discovers that it is easier to become vegetarian than try to eat the animals. Wolf Espionage is quite a delightful little story, and it was written by a young 12-year-old girl! Awards Winner: 2016 Young Writers’ Award Picture Book category The Young Writers Award is open to young authors aged between 9 and 13 years. Young writers have…

Mad Magpie By Gregg Dreise, Magabala Books, 2016. ‘Stay calm like the surface of the water, yet strong like its current.’ This beautiful masterpiece is both written and illustrated by a descendant of the Kamilaroi and Yuwalayaay people of the north-west New South Wales and the south-west Queensland areas, and published by Magabala, the oldest independent Indigenous publishing house in Australia. Mad Magpie is a richly illustrated artistic masterpiece that integrates the author’s indigenous Gamilaraay language in the names of the animals that we meet throughout the book! Guluu is an angry magpie who has been teased by a group of butcher birds. In turn, Guluu has been swooping down and attacking other animals. We learn about why Guluu is so angry and what has been happening to him. The Elders teach Guluu how to deal with the mean butcher birds and not become angry when they tease him. Mad Magpie is a story about overcoming adversity and standing strong in the face of difficulty. I hope that if you are from a country other than Australia, that you would still consider buying this book. You and your child will learn a little about Australia’s ancient past, as well as…

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…

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…

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…

Memorial By Gary Crew and Shaun Tan, Lothian Books, 1999. A story to help us remember…a message we should never forget. On a backdrop of old photographs, scraps of torn fabric and exquisitely textured paintings, we hear the story of Old Pa’s first world war memories. Journey down memory lane with Old Pa as he reminisces about his wife who was a nurse during the war, the Memorial tree they planted in town, and  We then hear from Ma, who was in the second world war and also remembers coming home the big town tree back in 1946. The tree stands next to a statue of the unknown soldier. Audrey, their great-granddaughter, and her father listen intently to the stories of her great-grandparents after the wars they served in. Special focus is the memorial tree in town. Memorial introduces environmental concerns when we learn that the council want to remove either the tree or the statue of the unknown soldier. Teacher’s Notes are available for this book for free from the publisher. Awards Picture Book of the Year,  Children’s Book Council of Australia, 2000.