A Christmas Menagerie

A Christmas Menagerie edited by Beattie Alvarez (Christmas Press) PB RRP $24.99 ISBN 9780994528049

Reviewed by Allison Paterson

Christmas is a time of sharing, a time for families to gather and a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the delight of a collection of short stories. A Christmas Menagerie contains twelve well-crafted animal tales, each with its own special touch of Christmas charm.

Written by both established and emerging authors, most of the stories are structured as fables with anthropomorphised animals and a moral to explore. Janeen Brian’s clever wombat discovers his perfect Christmas tree. Sophie Masson’s Barney Brown the bear has some trouble with the baking of his Christmas cake, that is, until he discovers the magical ingredients of sharing and friendship. From the environmental message of Victoria Nugent’s hatchling turtle, whose journey to the ocean is confused by Christmas lights, to the humour of A.P. Harper with Colin the sausage dog and his misadventures, children will enjoy the short stories that are perfect for an evening read in the lead up to Christmas.

I particularly enjoyed the originality of Michael Pryor’s dieting, slim, trim Santa in his lycra suit and his helper, an exhausted pig. Santa’s helper has been entrusted with the consumption of Santa’s snacks, but he just can’t eat any more cookies and milk! 

Included are entertaining stories from Gabrielle Wang, Sherryl Clark, Rachel Nightingale, J.A. Thorndyke, Michael Grey, Rebecca Fung and Michael McGoldrick.

Illustrated by Kathy Creamer, Fiona McDonald, Ingrid Kallick and Yvonne Low, the images add a touch of old-worldliness to the tales. The cover, which may not appeal to all young readers, does enhance the quaint nature of the collection and is reminiscent of times past. Lovely for sharing with children of early to mid-Primary years, A Christmas Menagerie offers the chance to dip in and enjoy each unique tale while adding to the seasonal cheer.

Stories for 8 Year Olds

Stories for 8 Year Olds edited by Linsay Knight, illustrated by Tom Jellett (Random House Australia)
PB RRP $14.95
ISBN 9781742756608
Reviewed by Marian McGuinness

Andy Griffiths, R.A. Spratt, Paul Jennings, Tristan Bancks, Belinda Murrell. This is just a smattering of the all-star line-up of authors for the last of the four collections, Stories for 8 Year Olds.

Editor of the series, Linsay Knight shares her thoughts on the stories chosen for the eight-year-old readership. ‘With burgeoning confidence and feeling increasingly comfortable with fewer illustrations and smaller type, these readers are eager to try out their skills on a range of different genres.’

Once again, 11 stories have been chosen from a smorgasbord of Australian authors, and they’re not all prose. Gruesome Grandads and Nasty Nans, with its shades of Roald Dahl, is a story written in verse.

There are many weird and wacky stories, none so different as the UFD - the Unidentified Flying Dog. Colin Thompson’s, A Giant called Norman Mary, is written with delicious exaggeration where giants roamed the land eating bicycle seats and haystacks as they ‘reached up into the sky and pulled down a star and by its light they picked their way across the world.’ Exaggeration is also the tool used in Toe, where Tom’s cruel sister Tanya could let saliva ‘drip right down to her bellybutton and still manage to vacuum it back up.’ It’s laugh-out-loud wicked humour.

Sometimes the point of view is that on an animal, as in Anita Bell’s Marom. A challenge is set up in Michael Pryor’s Say Cheese, where Phil builds a Santa display out of bits of junk that he declares, ‘the finest piece of engineering since the Pyramids.’

There’s great imagery in The Lachatim Dragon, where Lachie ‘could smell the distinctive rotting reek of bats’ as he and his friend explore a cavern for treasure.

Nanny Piggins is at her best in the Holistic Cake Healer as she gives free advice at the doctor’s surgery; after all, she has taken ‘the Hippopigic oath.’

And don’t forget to read about your favourite storytellers at the back of the book. You’ll be amazed when you find out how many other books they have written. Enough to keep you reading until the cows come home!

Stories for 6 Year Olds

Stories for 6 Year Olds edited by Linsay Knight, illustrated by Tom Jellett (Random House Australia)
PB RRP $14.95
ISBN 9781742756646
Reviewed by Marian McGuinness

To continue Linsay Knight’s short story anthology, here’s the next edition, Stories for 6 Year Olds.

‘… we have thought carefully about reading requirements for this age group, such as ratio of text to illustration and type size,’ says Linsay Knight in the forward of the anthology.

Tom Jellett continues his black-line illustrations that add context and clues to the stories, and the font style and size is different for the 6-year-old readers, with a little less white space on each page.

Robots, gnomes, teeth, bunyips, imps and goblins are some of the subjects in the 11 stories presented. Some stories are written in first person, while others are in third person, to vary the reading experience.

There’s a twist on the classic, The Ugly Duckling, with Mark Svendsen’s, The Ugly Bunyip. Robin Klein’s snooty robot, Parker-Hamilton, keeps his family’s house so clean that ‘the curtains hung like sheets of glass …’ and what does happen to all the ‘wobbly, wiggly, joggly, jiggly’ teeth in Dianne Bates’ story, that the tooth fairy collects?

Imagery enlivens the stories, with words like ‘twanged’ and ‘kick-swish’. Names add to the traits of the characters such as Ms Grizzly – the meanest deputy principal in the world, and Mrs Macgillacuddy, who dabs snails with whiteout.

There are slightly mythological stories such as Michael Pryor’s Lucky Jack, who is the seventh son of the seventh son, and the fairy tale-ish The Old Woman and the Imp by Sophie Masson.

The last story is Victor Kelleher’s Goblin at the Beach written in nine short chapters, which well prepares the reader for the next anthology in the series.

This anthology makes great holiday reading, or plain great reading to draw the new reader into the worlds created by some of the biggest names in Australian children’s literature. Okay – which Aussie author supported his writing habit by working as a supermarket-trolley boy and shelf-stacker? Find out lots of interesting titbits by reading the biographies of the eleven famous authors at the back of the book.