This book has everything in it about the ocean. I loved the descriptions of the animals and the little facts here and there. One of my favourite animals featured is the rainbow-coloured scale worm, which Hume has suggested should be called something more suitable like ‘disco glittersnapper’ or ‘rainbow ravager’.
Dirt By Sea is a brilliant large-page comic picture book with 40 glorious pages about a girl and her father adventuring around Australia.
Daisy lives in outback Queensland when whilst listening to the national anthem realises – what on earth does ‘dirt by sea’ mean?
Her dad explains that it is ‘girt by sea’
meaning they are surrounded by the ocean. Daisy walks outside and says – hold
up, we are surrounded by dirt!
The Bewilderbeast is a story about tracking down
the truth and hunting for monsters in the deep dark jungle. The story begins with a tracker (who happens to be a fox) that visits a jungle-y town and is promised gold if he can track down some monsters.
The townsfolk here have seen FOUR
monsters and have got themselves into quite a state over them and need someone to
help sort it out!
The tracker asks the villagers to describe the monsters, but he can’t get a simple description –
‘They’re horrific!' Some shouted. 'Bizarre!' Others claimed. They were wary and scared, no two stories the same.
Something about Alaska is a young adult
book about a boy visiting his estranged father. It is an adventurous, emotional
story about growing up.
Zac is a fourteen-year-old boy who goes to spend Christmas with his estranged father. They haven’t seen each other in some time and to make things complicated, his father lives in remote Alaska.
Things are a little awkward between Zac and his father, but Zac has hopes they will get along. His father likes to live alone and remains away from other people.
Zac has a hard time understanding and finds it difficult to
reach his tormented alcoholic father who is stuck in the past. Soon Zac feels
he can do nothing right in his father’s eyes.
A Little Spark is a delightful book that is warm and heartbreaking at the same time. It is about growing up, relationships and family.
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Little Red Riding Hood is
one of the most widely recognizable stories in the world. Over the years, there
have been many MANY adaptations of the folk story, from movies to books and
everything in between. But, has anyone really gone and thought if it was all
just one big misunderstanding? Maybe there is no villain, but rather a set of unfortunate circumstances and a touch of bigotry that resulted in one of the most popular stories of the last 400 years?
Lionel Poops is a funny board book with quirky humour that reads perfectly for a young audience who may be in need of some toilet training tips.
The Comet is an incredible book with phenomenal
illustrations about home and belonging.
Nyla and her father live a gorgeous life near the sea ‘where the trees tower tall and you can count a hundred stars.’
Nyla and her dad spend lots of time together and do fun things like cook delicious feasts, make up stories, and spend plenty of time in nature.
Then one day, her dad has to get a new job, and they move to a new place, one where Nyla can’t hear the sea. There is lots of grey tall buildings and Nyla can only count seven stars. Nyla does not like this place at all, she feels alone and lost. This is not her home.
You may be familiar with
the humble blobfish – the animal that has been deemed by some as the ‘Ugliest
Animal in the World’ (a harsh and cruel title, at that). But what you might not know about blobfish is that they can be incredibly funny, full of life, and make great friends.
This blobfish lives deep, deep, deep in the sea (as blobfish do), and all they want is a friend. But sadly, no one really wants to be friends with them.
This is a true waste, because they would make a great friend. Blobfish is seriously funny, and loves to tell jokes. So one day, they decide to swim up, up, up – all the way to the surface. There, they finally find… a friend!
This small child, the protagonist of the story, lives a peaceful life on an island. But one day, a storm hits, and their life is thrown into chaos. They are terrified of the storm and are all alone. That is until they find an unlikely friend, who is also lost and alone without their family… a baby seal.
The days where you can
walk into a shop and buy a pet are long gone, but in this Emporium, Mr Price is
selling pets, and you would not believe the mischief he gets up to. The story begins with a young girl who is looking for the perfect pet - 'Lately I've been thinking that I'd really like to get a fluffy, fuzzy, cuddly-wuddly, friendly little pet'. She heads off to the pet emporium where Mr Price insists he can help her and shows her pet after pet... but every single one is not exactly what it is meant to be.
We
all know that most bunnies are adorable and fluffy and generally like
frolicking around the woods, handing out chocolate Easter eggs and occasionally
befriending little baby deer... but there is one bunny that is NOT like the
other bunnies at all. They call him the bad bunny, and this is his story.
The
Bad Bunny is very different from the other bunnies, he enjoys all kinds of
naughty things like picking his nose, bathing in slime and putting spicy sauce
on everything – especially donuts, of course! In fact, he really doesn't have
many redeeming qualities at all, and the other bunnies do not enjoy his company
one bit.
Piano
Fingers is a
melodic book by brilliant author/illustrator extraordinaire Carolyn Magerl. It’s
a story about two sisters and creating music.
Bea comes from a big musical family who do big musical things, but Bea is still waiting for her music to start. Her older sister Isla plays the violin, a ‘honey fog machine,’ and she is very serious about her practice.
Bea has ‘her own box of noisy noises’, but nothing quite sings for her yet. That is until she finds the piano, and meets maestro Gus, the ghost cat who lives inside the piano, that helps her find her song.
Frank and Bert is a gorgeous, playful book about
friendship.
The story is narrated by Frank the fox, who introduces us to his best friend – Bert the bear. But as much as Frank loves Bert, Bert is terrible at hide-and-seek, and poor Frank is really quite over it. But apparently Bert thinks it’s just because he never gets quite enough time to hide!
How can a bear be expected to hide in ten measly seconds? So Frank graciously allows him to hide for a whole 100 seconds!
After the countdown, and traversing
multiple mounds and mountains, Bert finally finds a hiding spot. But sadly, he
doesn’t realise his scarf has caught on a tree and he has left a twine trail
right to him! Frank easily follows the trail, and sees Bert’s hiding spot, but
will it make him happy to find Bert and ruin the game? Frank has quite the
conundrum that everyone has to face at some point in their lives– is winning
everything? Or is it fair to let someone else have a turn?
How much do you
know about tractoring? Do you have a little one obsessed with everything
farming? Then this is the book for them! Sally Sutton is a master of informative easy to read books and her latest book Tractor is no exception.
This book is all about farming and every page takes us through
different things a tractor can do.
It’s a great page-turner for kids with the question and answer page set up so little ones will find the answer as to what tractor tool makes what sound.
We all know that going
to school can feel like entering a jungle, and sometimes it feels like it could
be full of wild animals. One morning Oscar was taking a long time to wake up and his sister Ava was not impressed - they were late!
When they eventually get to school, they don’t notice at first that things aren’t quite right, and then when they do get into class, they see something rather alarming… an elephant! Wearing bloomers of all things, and having a cup of tea.
Twelve Little Festive Frogs is a Christmas story that is
modelled after a familiar Christmas classic song - Twelve Days of Christmas.
Except in this story, instead of a true love, we have twelve little funny frogs
who all give out different gifts. It is a second book in the frogs series, with
the first being Ten Yoga Frogs.
The
plot of this book really is pretty much the Christmas song Twelve Days of
Christmas. It begins with the first day of Christmas when ‘One’ frog gives a
gift to a friend - Bea. It’s a parcel from a pear tree. After this, every
individual frog gives a gift to another, with the whole process being repeated and
building from the start. Every page is a lovely double spread with big bright illustrations
of the frogs, and the page gets fuller and fuller with all the presents as it
goes along.
Coco is back in her
third book, Coco and The Bee, and this time she is making friends
in unlikely places (because we all know Coco is NOT a fan of bugs).
In this book, Coco
is learning about growing things, and she learns all about bees. She also makes
a new friend, who is not someone she thought she would be friends with – a
stinky boy. Will they ever get to be good friends? Do they even have anything
in common?
If I could choose
one word to describe these books, it would be wholesome. They make me so happy
inside and are so well executed, from the story to the pictures and the script.
They are like strawberries and butterflies and all things adorable rolled up
into one. I want to give Coco a pat and a little hug because she is so flipping
adorable.
