Review: Animals on Country

Animals on Country combines education and fun as Uncle Kuu takes us for a walk to learn about Australian animals.

If you look carefully, you can see fresh tracks on the ground where different animals have been roaming around.

Meet The Illustrator: Dani G

Name: Dani G

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less:
Quirky, fun, bold colours, colourful, Australiana, stark, different, organic.

What items are an essential part of your creative space?
My desktop computer with the Adobe Creative Suite, Ipad and Apple pencil. Walls printed with photographs of my inspiration.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium
Although I work digitally, I do love traditional media such as printmaking using lino tiles and ink. I also love working with paper and oil pastels and getting messy with a mixed media approach.

Meet The Illustrator: Michèle Dodd

Name: Michèle Dodd

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less:
Semi realistic, quirky, colourful and totally original

What items are an essential part of your creative space?
A beautiful view, Lyra pencils, watercolours, scalpel, Lyra .25 lead pencil, a make-up brush to remove dust, paintbrushes and a Staedtler rubber.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium?
Pencil and watercolour.

Name three artists whose work inspires you.
Van Gogh, Maurice Sendak and Julie Vivas

Which artistic period would you most like to visit and why?
Would have to be when The Heidelberg School artists were in full swing creating amazing Australian landscapes at their artist camps in the Heidelberg area - late 1880’s to early 1890’s.

Review: Luna's World Bk #2 - Friendship Fail

Friendship Fail is the second title in the excellent series, Luna’s World. 

Luna is a wonderful, relatable character.  

She is smart, loves books, writing and the diary she is encouraged to keep, helps to centre her when her mind is whirring. 

It has been five weeks since Luna’s last entry. So much has happened during that time.

Luna and her Mum have become dog walkers. 

Their persistence and lots of advertising found them customers.

Review: The Giant

The magnificent simplicity of this latest picture book by Sophie Masson and Lorena Carrington belies its profound complexities. 

Which is exactly what you want in a picture book for kids that conveys some pretty big notions.

It begins in a cave, ostensibly the giant’s where he has been hibernating for some time. As he re-emerges into the world, the world reacts with alarm and fear. 

The giant heads out, dutifully announcing his return and greeting every one he encounters as graciously as a giant with an overgrown beard and foreboding appearance can.  

Meet The Illustrator: Peter Baldwin

Name: Peter Baldwin

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.
Earthy, expressive, narrative-driven with nature and character at heart.

What items are an essential part of your creative space?
Books and comics for inspiration, Dungeons & Dragons miniatures for painting and storytelling, tidy art supplies for focus, and my computer to pull it all together. My miniature ecosystems—terrariums and aquariums—bring the outside in. They help me slow down, stay curious, and dream up the wild worlds I love to draw.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium?
Hand-drawn inking is definitely my favourite. I enjoy the control and expression that ink pens and brushes offer. I also use pencil, coloured pencils, crayons, and watercolours to add texture and colour. My lightboard, Wacom, and computer help me refine and finish the work digitally. It’s a balance between traditional techniques and digital tools.

Review: Ghost Detectives - Terry Fide and the Bakery Ghost

Ghost Detectives is a new series of ghostly stories with interesting and funny characters. 

Terry Fide and the Bakery Ghost introduces nine-year-old timid Terry, who wants to be a ghost detective and follow in the footsteps of his father and his ancestors.  

 Unfortunately, he is terrified of ghosts and other scary things.

Mum and dad run a ghost detective service and are constantly inundated with requests to solve the reason for ghostly hauntings. 

This is a job at which they are highly skilled.  

Dad, Horry Fide, has commitments interstate to solve other ghostly issues. 

Guest Posts: Rebecca Fung on Creating A New Children's Press

After I'd written two children's chapter books, I wanted to publish a middle grade novel. 

Everyone talks about how wearying pitching is so I thought - how about publishing it myself? And how about starting our very own new children's press?

I've worked in publishing before so this didn't seem too far-fetched. My last foray in the publishing world though was very different - I worked in legal publishing. There, books often have pages more dedicated to footnotes than the main text! As an editor, you fuss about, ensuring all those Latin legal terms are spelled correctly.

Meet The Illustrator: James O'Hanlon

Name: James O'Hanlon

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.
Expressive animal characters in absurd situations. Blending science with silliness.

What items are an essential part of your creative space?
1- Tea with milk and sugar
2- Pencils and paper for sketching, any kind will do!
3- Drawing tablet - Wacom Cintiq
4- Electric pencil sharpener. Once you get used to them, it’s hard to go back to manual sharpeners or whatever they’re called. Acoustic sharpeners?

Do you have a favourite artistic medium?
I love using watercolours over ink line work, but for most projects I find myself working digitally.

Guest Post: Romi Sharp on Getting Lost In The Pages

When it comes to kids and reading, it’s natural that we’d love for them to get lost in a good book on a regular basis. To get lost in the pages. To get lost in the words. To get lost in the moment and of course, in imagination. 

Children’s books allow us to get lost in different worlds, in alternate realities, or even just a thought about a notion that hadn’t been considered before. 

They are the pinnacle of where wonder, dreams, truths and make-believes can take us. 

And picture books? They add that extra cherry on top with their ability to invite viewers to get lost in the art. But why is this important?

Guest Post: Ellie Royce on Making Memories

A story is often inspired by memories. The older we get, the more we have to inspire us!

I have many fond recollections of time spent with my grandparents, the smell of bacon frying on a Sunday morning as my Poppa made breakfast, walking with him to the shop at the end of the street on a Friday afternoon to spend about 2 dollars on a huge, newspaper wrapped parcel of fish and chips that fed the whole family (there were usually about eight of us, according to my memory!)

Review: Luna's World Bk#1- Library Dreams

Luna’s World: Bk#1- Library Dreams, is the beginning of an engaging series, featuring the impressive leading character, Luna, who loves books and reading. 

The library is her favourite place.

On Luna’s first day in Grade 5, she barely makes it to school on time having slept in.  She’s not the only one. Cody, her best friend also slept in!

Through her diary entries, Luna shares her daily activities, friendships, challenges, and opposing thoughts on lots of issues, of which she has many.

Meet The Illustrator: Elizabeth Misek

Name: Elizabeth Misek

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.
Whimsical worlds, full of warmth, wonder and movement.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium?
My paint tins. I have one that holds my signature colours as well as a larger storage tin, that holds random accent pans.
I then add one or two fresh colours to my signature tin, depending on the project.

Review: Me And You

When it comes to Mother’s Day, it’s always a bitter-sweet feeling in our house as we each grieve for our own mothers, but we have each other and that’s important too.

Just like the grandmother and grand-daughter in this absolutely delightful picture book from Ellie Royce and Penelope Pratley. 

Review: Tomato Sandwich

Every now and then, a little something comes along and turns you upside down. A little something, that just shows up to warp your mind and make your heart sing.

Tomato Sandwich is this little something.
Everything about this book is squishily delicious.

A small, twirly girl called Ottliy with magic fairy wings, a tiny little dog with carefree boldness, and a great big kind dad whose pants stay up I-don’t-know-how, all somehow just wiggle their respective ways into your heart.

Review: Harry and Gran Bake a Cake

Delicious looking images of sweets fill the end pages that trumpet the pleasures contained in this delightful and sweet book.

Integrated with the baking, is the loving relationship between a child and his Gran, and a sense of joy.

Harry and Gran love being together.

On this special day, they plan to bake. Out comes the recipe book.  

Difficult choices are made.

Chocolate, of course! 

Harry’s favourite.

Review: Millie and Stella: Best Friends Forever - Bk#1, The Lost Ponies

Millie and Stella are best friends. They have many things in common, particularly their love of animals; especially horses.

Stella’s horse Sparky is older, and Millie’s is quite young. Both are loved passionately.

Stella is a warm and friendly girl, who encourages Millie’s differing view of things in general. When Millie’s spirits slump, Stella always has uplifting words ready to steer her friend back to her cheerful self.

The paddock where the two horses graze has become dry, and they suggest to their neighbour Mrs White, to allow the horses to graze in her lush pasture, in return for odd jobs.

There are certain conditions to the agreement; locks and latches must be double checked.

The girls have a common love of books and reading.

Meet The Illustrator: Natasha Carty

Name: Natasha Carty

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.
Whimsical, textured and detailed - with an emphasis on light and shade.

What items are an essential part of your creative space?
A cup of tea, comfy clothes, a tidy work space filled with beautiful things and a podcast in-ear.

Review: How to Make a Bedtime

When the sun’s light is fading and night’s on the rise,

It’s time to start yawning your sleepy goodbyes.

Time for snuggling and snoozing and slumbering now.

Time for making your bedtime and I’ll show you how.

In this sweet, rhyming bedtime tale by talented creators Meg McKinlay and Karen Blair, a boy and his bear are heading to bed.

12 Curly Questions with author/illustrator Tom Jellett

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.

I eat too too many biscuits.

2. What is your nickname?
I’m not sure I have one. Unless there is one I don’t know about. There are only two people who call me ‘Tommy’. They know who they are.

3. What is your greatest fear?
Band-Aids at the bottom of the pool.

4. Describe your writing style in 10words.
I use too many words and run out of…

5. Tell us five positive words that describe you as a writer.
Slow in a good way.