Review: Madame Pamplemousse and the Time-Travelling Café

Title: Madame Pamplemousse and the Time-Travelling Café

Author: Rupert Kingfisher

Publisher: Bloomsbury, A$19.99

Format: Hardcover with dustjacket

Language: English

ISBN: 9781408800546

For ages: 9-12

Type: Junior Fiction

About: When the young and curious Madeleine is abandoned by her parents, she befriends a curious group of enchanting characters including Monsieur Moutarde and Madame Pamplemousse – the greatest culinary genius the world has ever known.

Madame Pamplemousse (with means ‘grapefruit’ in French) owns a captivating café in the famed Montmartre district of Paris, alongside business partner Moutarde (‘mustard’). Here in this café lies a magnificent coffee machine capable of making an elixir that will transport Madeleine to other times – to Jurassic times, to Scotland in the 1930s, even to the time of the mighty Sphinx.

But when Paris and its historic monuments are marked for descruction by a corrupt Parisian government, Madeleine could never imagine the mind-boggling adventures in store.

Accompanied by gorgeously retro ink illustrations by Sue Hellard, this book is a feat in extraordinary imagination. A truly wonderful tale, in the style of the fabulously historical and nonsensical stories of yore, it will absolutely delight any reader intent on taking an unexpected trip – to fanciful literary satisfaction.

Wonderful stuff.

Review: Robox and Dream Machines

Title: Robox / Dream Machines

Author: Mark Rogalski

Illustrator: Mark Rogalski

Publisher: Running Press, A$19.99

Format: Softcover

Language: English

EAN: 9780762435456

For ages: 4-8

Type: Picture Book

About: Robox is more than meets the eye; a cardboard box contortionist that transforms into a four-limbed automaton with a window view of his bottomless tummy (which doubles as a convenient book package display).

Robox emerges as the gastro-con solution to Renny’s slew of problems; a stalking feline, lugheaded bullies, tentacle veggies and of course, the perpetual plague of homework. Robox gobbles up all of Renny’s troubles in one metallic chomp until his hunger starts to consume the good along with the bad.

Author and artist, Mark Rogalski, details Renny’s odyssey and Robox’s dietary oddities in fantastic 3-D detail inviting 'I-spy' study of each graphic page. Multimedia touches such as vintage baseball cards, hand-drawn sketches and charts, contribute to the hyperrealism of Renny’s world and this tale of 'action, adventure and appetite'.

By far, Robox, is one of the most inventive and innovative children’s books that makes reading fun and functional. I immediately made my free-standing Robox which now stands on my shelf, displaying his impish Short Circuit cyborg cuteness. I’m convinced that when he isn’t digesting the worries of the universe, he is dreaming of martian landscapes and rocketing across blue skies.

Rogalski’s custom signature of lush landscapes and interactive imagination also unfolds in Dream Machines; a World’s Fair wonder of fantastic vehicles from the Bubble Sub to the Steam Train Aeroplane.

True to his packaging prowess, Rogalski also includes a dust jacket cover that doubles as a fold-out board game. Singsong clues ring throughout the book (“...the star you seek is in the sky, get back on track and roll the die...”) that advance both the dazzling story and spellbound player across a boardgame of contraptions and creatures.

Author website

You can buy these books online:

Robox
Fishpond - A$19.99
SeekBooks - A$17.96
Amazon - US$10.85

Dream Machines
Fishpond - A$20.01
SeekBooks - A$22.46
Amazon - US$12.44

Review: Aussie Legends

Title: Aussie Legends

Author: Tom Baddeley

Illustrator: Tracey Gibbs

Publisher: Fremantle Press, A$19.95

Format: Hardcover

Language: English

ISBN: 9781921361609

For ages: 8+

Type: Picture Book

About: Love a bit of Aussie nostalgia, me, and Australian books feature highly on the burgeoning children's book Wishlist in our house. Many are charming and whimsical, many are bright or funny, but less of them feature such fascinating and comprehensive information as Aussie Legends.

Perhaps it's because my children are getting older (or perhaps it's me who's getting older) but I'm loving this new book by Tom Baddeley - a historical snapshot of several famous (or infamous) Aussie legends who have helped colour the annuls of history in this great land of ours. As kids get older, it's so valuable to expose them to historical and cultural content - outside the school curriculum and without the boring bits, of course.

Where better to start than our most notorious baddie - Ned Kelly - the story of a man that well needs to be pulled from the dusty old coffers of history and spiced up on a plate of pressed tin. Was Kelly a hero or a villain and did his famed metal armour manage to halt the hail of bullets that claimed his friends?

We're also treated to a snapshot of some of our most famed explorers - Burke and Wills, whose 1860/61 expedition across the Blue Mountains paved the way for others to traverse this unthinkable route is covered in the book. Alas, it ended in tragedy.

Our most famed opera singer, Dame Nellie Melba gets the historical treatment next, followed by two of our greatest sporting heroes - cricketer Sir Donald Bradman and Aboriginal tennis star Evonne Goolagong Cawley. And what better way to round out our country's cultural splendour than with the magnificent Phar Lap - a racehorse whose oversized heart (at twice the normal size) still remains encased in glass at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.

Prefaced with maps to give readers some orientation, each chapter of Aussie Legends is a new adventure. Told in true and very Aussie rollicking rhyme, the educational nature of this book takes on an updated and rhythmic pace that children will enjoy and adults will enjoy reading out loud.

Illustrations by Tracey Gibbs are lustrous in colour and emotion - inked in a slightly abstract style - almost a modern Picasso/Frida Kahlo blend. Her striking wattle wallpaper patterns, scrumptious shadowing and choice of colour give this book the richness its content deserves.

Aussie Legends is a book all Australians will enjoy, and I for one, am already mulling over the next six Aussie icons Tom Baddeley will feature in the sequel (there will be a sequel, won't there Tom?). Our children need to stand up and be proud of the memorable historical figures we have produced in our few short centuries as a modern nation - thank you Tom for dragging them out of the library and plonking them into this beautiful new book.

Look out kids - history is about to get interesting!

Learn more about Aussie Legends at Fremantle Press.

Teacher's Notes

You can buy this book online:

The Nile - A$17.99
QBD - A$19.95
Buy Australian - A$17.76

Booko!

Keen to find a book for the best price in the country? Then Booko can help. You can search by title, author, ISBN and EAN - and it's also a great way for authors and illustrators to find out where their books are being stocked.

Riley and the Dancing Lion has only been out three weeks, yet I was delighted to discover where the book is already being sold...

Items can't be purchased on the site - it essentially stockpiles the whereabouts of the book you want and shows you where to get it.

The site also does DVDs.

Head to http://www.booko.com.au/ now and start searching!

Kids Books Roundup

There was a lovely article by Jon Scieszka in the Los Angeles Times this past weekend - on a children's book roundup for 2009.

Fantastic to see Shaun Tan included with The Arrival, and Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a must-mention. One of my favourite style of children's books - the ABC - is also represented with mention of A Is for Art by Stephen T. Johnson and Just in Case a Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book by Yuyi Morales.

Scieszka also talks of the increase in illustrated books... for older readers. Remember when we were young... chapter books were often peppered with drawings - if not throughout the book, at least as an illustriously illustrated chapter header.

'The graphic novel is booming,' says Scieszka, 'Comics, heavily illustrated texts, books with no words are now accepted as reading... Graphic storytelling is a great way to help kids get started reading. It's also a powerful artistic form in its own right.'

I couldn't agree more. I particularly adore children's books that not only inspire, but blend mediums to create a work of art children (and adults) will remember.

Scieszka goes on to say: 'The state of children's books? Thriving. Inspiring.'

Doesn't it make you smile?

Review: Chicken Dance

Title: Chicken Dance

Author: Tammi Sauer

Illustrator: Dan Santat

Publisher: Sterling

Format: Hardcover

Language: English

ISBN: 10: 1402753667

For ages: 4-8

Type: Picture Book

About: There’s a whole lot of hoopla when hens Marge and Lola find a poster announcing The Final Doodle Doo and its grand prize to see none other than the cuck-a-doodle dooing crooner, Elvis Poultry, in Chicken Dance.

Eager to win, the ladies search for a sure-fire talent that they can perform in spite of the boastful crowing from their barnyard rivals, the ducks.

Marge and Lola finally take to the stage and strut their stuff striking iconic dance moves; winged interpretations of Madonna’s 'Vogue', 'Walk Like an Egyptian' and 'Staying Alive' stun the crowd but ultimately catch the King of 'Bawk and Roll’s' coveted attention.

Author Tammi Sauer humorously captures the fierce competition with fowl-humored jabs ("Get some floaties, chickens”) and throw back references to the DooWop pop phenomenon that ruffled the feathers of the 60s.

Dan Santat adds to the retro romp with mixed media illustrations framed in nostalgic browns and oranges complete with a star-studded cover that pays homage to the King.

Chicken Dance even includes chicken-scratch dance step variations on the inside cover for the footloose and fearless. Forget the embarrassing elbow flap stomp that strikes wedding receptions worldwide - Chicken Dance takes this classic shimmy out of the stuffy dance hall and puts it into the barnyard for an original and inspirationally funny read.

This review by Meghan Killeen - author, bloggist, reviewer. See The Ruby Winkle Review for more.

Riley and the Dancing Lion Launch Party

WOW! What a fantabulous time we had at Daltons Books in Canberra City on Sunday 6 December to launch Riley and the Dancing Lion. Click here for more.

Self-Publishing Interview at Dee Scribe

Really lovely of author Dee White to feature my self-publishing journey on Dee Scribe today, in the form of an interivew. Thanks, Dee!

You can read what I had to say by clicking on the picture above.

Review: Bottersnikes and Other Lost Things

Title: Bottersnikes and Other Lost Things

Author: Juliet O'Conor

Publisher: The Miegunyah Press, A$59.99RRP

Format: Harcover with dustjacket

Language: English

ISBN: 978 0 522 85651 4

For ages: Adult

Type: Compendium

About: This beautiful new tome, edited by Juliet O'Conor, reveals all in its tempting subtitle: 'A celebration of Australian illustrated children's books'. And a celebration it is indeed.

O'Conor, who curates the State Library of Victoria's Children's Literature Collection of more than 100,000 home-grown and international books, has compiled an impressive and beautifully presented blend of Australian works dating from the early 19th Century to modern day.

Obviously inspired by the collection of books she's had the fortune to deal with during her career, the author wished to highlight the diversity of Australia's literary heritage for children. As O'Conor states in her Introduction, this compliation was not based purely on literary or artistic merit, but rather to juxtapose lesser known works with the more iconic.

Divided into five parts - schooldays, morality and family, home and land, journeys and other worlds, the author presents a delectable glimpse into both the artwork and nuance embedded in children's books over past two centuries, covering elements such as early educational texts, alphabet books, school papers and readers (teacher heaven!), character development and maturation, physical journeys, imaginary worlds and much more.

Along the way, readers are treated to author and book profiles, snippets of award-winning and notable books, and of course beautifully-laid out picture and text examples - of books both well-known and little-known.

What a treat to open and pore over a book that rends one away from current life and plummets us into the past. I can still smell the pages of the Coles Funny Picture Books my grandfather left me, depicted in this tome. I can giggle at the Blinky Bill and Gumbnut pictures and ogle over the retro paintings from Space Songs for Young Children - a book I had never laid eyes on until now.

But it would have to be Bottersnikes and Gumbles that brought tears to my middle-aged eyes - those fat little marshmallow Gumble pudges sitting atop a grumbly Bottersnike. Just precious stuff. And the conservation message of this 1967 is not lost on the modern day mind.

From May Gibbs to Ruth Park and Ethel Turner, Margaret Wild, Norman Lindsay, Mem Fox, Thoby Riddle and Pamela Allen, this is a book you will meander over for years to come. The references to stories and their history will entrance, and the meticulous research conducted by the author has allowed us to become as close as any everday book lover can come to understanding the concepts behind these beautiful stories.

The book will also make anyone blatantly aware of the incredible literary talent inherent to Australia. For a country of such concise history, our collection, quality and diversity of children's literature is quite astounding, and something of which we should be immensely proud.

This book is a must-own for anyone who loves children's books, Australian or not.

Review: Battle Boy: Open Fire

Title: Battle Boy: Open Fire

Author: Charlie Carter

Publisher: Pan Macmillan, $4.99 (special price)

Format: Softcover

Language: English

ISBN: 9780330425018

For ages: 6-10

Type: Junior Fiction/Reader

About: When Napoleon Augustus Smythe finds a mysterious note in the local library asking him to meet real life war heroes from the past, he can never imagine the astounding operations that lay in store. Operations you ask? That’s right – Operation Battle Book.

Wearing his special high tech ‘skin’ suit and equipped with all manner of cool, time-travelling devices, Napoleon (or agent ‘BB005’) opens his very first battle book which sends him screaming back to the past – to Spain in 1587 where he finds himself aboard the ship of the great Sir Francis Drake. His mission? to collect Drake’s DNA for the Warrior Gene Bank.

The first in this amazing series – Battle Boy: Spying on the Past – Carter’s books are designed specifically to engage reluctant readers and so feature large type and concise text that doesn’t compromise on a hightech vocabulary – perfect for cool dude boys in the primary school age range.

Younger competent readers will enjoy a reading challenge and older less competent readers will enjoy a totally rad storyline coupled with relatable text. The books also feature plenty of action-style illustrations and varying text type, making for a read that very dramatically combines history with cool. Education and entertainment?

The perfect book, really.

Teacher's Notes

More in this series:

Red Devil Down
Destroy Troy
Bloodaxe
Battle Bust-up
Aztec Attack

This book is available online:

Fishpond - A$3.95
QBD - $A4.99
Dymocks - A$4.99