story time books

Michelle Osment, writer of the Perky the Pukeko series has teamed up with Sarah Neliwise Anderson, who illustrated The Were-Nana (winner of the Children’s Choice Award at this year’s NZ Post book Awards) to produce this picture book. It’s the story of the adventures of an umbrella, left outside the door of the charity store where Miss Dott volunteers, picked up by a customer, left outside the music store by him, then picked up by one of their customers, and so on. Eventually it is returned, completely by chance, to its original spot, and when Miss Dott comes out it has stopped raining and she thinks she need not have brought it at all. Great fun, with the rhyming text and illustrations created with digital painting and ink washes and splatters.

Phillip Gwynne’s latest young adult novel is an unusual mix. The protagonist and narrator, Hugh is a ner, or an erd, ( three-quarters nerd), but the other quarter has a love of cars, Holdens in particular. Yes, it’s another Australian book. On the eve of his audition for a place at the prestigious Conservatorium, Hugh, a talented cellist, and someone whose future is all mapped out for him, does the unexpected and sets off on a road trip to Uluru with his newly discovered Grandfather. On the way he learns quite a few things that have been missing from his education so far, about his grandfather, his family, and himself. It’s a novel with as much grunt as Hugh’s grandfather’s HT Monaro GTS 350, but it’s also a novel with humour and heart and one of the ultimate road trips, and it’s beautifully crafted and written with characters who feel real, complex and imperfect. A very good read.

Babette Cole’s Princess Smartypants is back. While she’s shoeing her dragon, wearing overalls, her Majesty the mother tells her she’s off to fairy princess finishing school. She asks Kingy, her father, if she has to go, and he tells her, “Your mother will give you a hard time if you don’t,” so she agrees.  Of course her arrival on her dragon, instead of in a coach causes consternation and distress as the other new pupils end up in the moat, but when she breaks out of dungeon detention the other girls decide they want to be cool rather than fairy princesses, so Smartypants takes over the lessons, culminating in Lesson 5: Let’s break all the rules, “so they all lived happily ever after” riding off into the sunset on their dragons. Wonderfully anarchic as ever.

Josh and Phil Undy and their cast of family friends and hangers-on are back for the 6th book by Michael Wagner, illustrated by Gus Gordon. This time the boys are on the move. They are earning too much now from their mannying to be entitled to the public housing apartment they’ve been in all this time. So naturally, being who they are, they make games out of looking for houses and moving house. What I like most about these books is that while they’re laugh-out-loud funny most of the time, there’s reality and genuine emotion behind the laughter and silliness. If you haven’t discovered this series, it’s great reading for 7-11-year-olds, especially but not exclusively boys. There are end-of-chapter rewards from puzzles to finger puppets and the action is non-stop, the insults almost continuous, as Josh and Phil compete in another four games. Great stuff.

Here’s a new Greedy Cat adventure from Joy Cowley and Robyn Belton. Grandma goes on holiday, leaving Katie  to goldfish sit. Her mother warns her to look out for Greedy  Cat, but Katie gives him the benefit of the doubt, much to Greedy Cat’s delight. Even when he tries to hook the fish out of the bowl, Katie’s benevolent interpretation is that he’s trying to pat the fish. Mum is more realistic and puts the goldfish high on a shelf. Greedy Cat knows he can’t jump that far, but attempts an ascent by curtain, only to have the curtain rip when he is almost within reach of his meal. The cat is then banished to the shed until Grandma’s return. Lovely rhyming text and wonderful atmospheric illustrations make this another memorable collaboration from this pair.

Kyle Mewburn’s new picture book, with illustrations by Rachel Driscoll “created in pencil, paint and tears”,  is a beauty. It begins with Old Hu-Hu flying to the moon and back and falling down dead. All the insects come to say goodbye, because Old Hu-Hu has been much loved. “But nobody loved him quite as much as little Hu-Hu-Tu.” So little Hu-Hu-Tu, knowing that the empty shell is not Old Hu-Hu, tries to find out where he’s gone.  He asks the ladybird, the spider and the butterfly, all of whom give comforting images, none of them much comfort. Then, after a night of weeping, “as the sun cracked open the sky, he heard Old Hu-Hu’s voice.” And after looking everywhere to find out where the voice is coming from, he realises that it comes from inside himself. He smiles, and flies to the moon and back, just as his mentor had done..”all the time, long ago, when he was young..”. The text has a sort of random rhyme which appears and disappears,and feels entirely appropriate, and the illustrations are exquisitely detailed. A wonderful combination, in a beautiful hardback format.

Margaret Mahy’s latest book is another of those wonderful stories which starts in the real world and then slips sideways into something and somewhere else. Carlo has been in hospital, and is sick of being confined to the old brown flat which has many disadvantages and only one real advantage, its cheapness. It is a day of rejoicing for him and his mother Jessica when the doctor allows him up and into the world again.  So they go off to the supermarket, “a nice, ordinary, outside thing to do” according to Jessica.  But, and if you’ve read much of Margaret Mahy you’ll know there might be a very big but, outside the supermarket they run into a little old woman dressed like a Christmas tree. Katerina Christmas insists they take her hundred-ride bus ticket to the end of the world, and almost immediately a Number 13 bus in the same colour as the ticket pulls up looking for them.  And so begins an adventure full of heroes and villains, wonderful word play and zany inventiveness, like a crazy supermarket full of thing like exploding porridge and optional soup (tick the desired flavour). A largish font and only 159 pages means its a quick read making it suitable for anyone over about eight, and as Carlo very quickly meets Pearl, a girl of about his age, it has male and female main characters.  Wonderfully imaginative and great fun.

Giles Andreae (Giraffes Can’t Dance,  Rumble in the Jungle, etc.) has teamed up with several different illustrators in the past. This time it’s Katherine McEwen’s turn, and this time, unlike most of his other picture books, the text is in prose, not rhyme. Nat’s mother is reading him a story, but keeps being interrupted, by pots left boiling, phones and doorbells. Each time she briefly leaves the room, Nat sneezes and turns into Nat Fantastic, a miniature superhero in silver pyjamas.  Before his mother returns he has time to save girls in an African River, capture bank robbers and other such acts of bravery, before another sneeze returns him to his bed. Lots of lovely onomatopoeic stuff like  Splash! Kaboom! Buzz!Aaaachoooo! (of course) to punctuate the story. Great bedtime story for active superhero types, but perhaps needs to be followed with something more peaceful (if the superhero needs sleep!)

First there was A Lion Called Christian, a book for adults, then Christian the Lion, a version for children, both by Ace Bourke and John Rendall, about how they bought a lion cub in Harrods, and later returned him to Africa. Now there’s a picture book, with lots of new photos, telling the story from the lion’s perspective, looking like Christian’s photo album of the journey from department store to Kenya. It’s a story which has caught the public imagination, now translated to the picture book format for an even younger audience.

The third book from the Surfing Scientist, Ruben Meerman, continues the tradition of making science fun and understandable. This one concentrates on the wonders of our bodies, from making a pulse monitor with a straw, to optical illusions, sensation illusions, mind reading and other tricks. Some are more illusion than science, of course, but the author does a good job, as in the other books, of explaining what’s going on, and, as I mentioned, making it all fun.