Rabbit’s Hide-and Seek

Rabbit’s Hide-and-Seek by Ruth Paul (Walker Books)

HC RRP $ 24.95

ISBN 9781922077349

Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

Rabbit and his friends are in the forest playing hide-and-seek. Rabbit counts as Duckling, Hedgehog, Mouse, Red Panda and Bushbaby leave the basket on the patchwork quilt to run and hide.

“Ready or not, here I come!” One by one the friends in their hiding places are found by Rabbit until only Bushbaby remains. They search everywhere. But where is Bushbaby? What will bring him out of his secret hiding place? When he finally decides to show up, the others are nowhere to be found. Now he must search for them.

This is a delightful story of friends having fun and enjoying play outdoors with a few surprises thrown in. The gorgeous illustrations in soft colours and created in pencil and digital media, depict the friends delighting in each other’s company. The superb end pages, replicas of the patchwork quilt depicted in the story, are supremely eye-catching in varying pastel shades.

A fantastic production from cover to cover, it will delight readers in the 2+ age group.

My Dinosaur Dad

My Dinosaur Dad by Ruth Paul (Scholastic NZ)
PB RRP $15.99
ISBN 978-1-77543-174-9
Reviewed by Jenny Heslop


Every Dinosaur in this irresistibly cute book has a Dad who is special in his own unique way. Each sounds different, looks different and moves differently. As the young reader turns each page, the sparse text and vibrant pictures shows this variety of dads.

With an even rhyme and consistent rhythm, the text describes straight-forward concepts:

    This dad is tall,

    this dad is squat.

    This dad is huge,

    this dad is not.

And yet the story builds up to an exciting level until the last two pages provide a conclusion which is both surprising and satisfying.

The colourful illustrations show dinosaurs with plenty of personality and other animals alongside them. There is a grumpy tortoise on the whistling dinosaur page who is just delightful. Young children will find this a highly entertaining book, especially dinosaur mad boys (or girls) who may well find similarities with their own dads - prickly, tickly, snoring, tall or hungry!

This is a perfect book for fathers to read to their littlies. Perhaps this Father’s Day?

Mr Tripp Goes for a Skate

Mr Tripp Goes for a Skate by Sandy McKay illustrated by Ruth Paul (Walker Books Australia)

PB RRP $11.95

ISBN – 9781921529733

Reviewed by Emma Cameron

Using the same characters as the highly successful Mr Tripp Smells a Rat, this book sees Mr Tripp and Room Five learning about the invention of the wheel. Told in three chapters, each with their own titles, this book will have beginner readers able to easily follow the story of how studying the wheel is more fun when incorporating an event like “Wheels Day” so everyone can get involved.

For some reason, however, Mr Tripp is less enthusiastic about riding in the playground than everyone else is. Everyone brings something different to ride on wheels day. Bikes, rollerblades, scooters abound. Mr Tripp’s skateboard, however, brings real drama. He tries a number of ways to avoid riding it, until Miss Filipo insists he do so. And he crashes.

Fortunately, Mr Trip’s fall is without injury and he can laugh about it. Readers will be relieved and the use of jokes and riddles, as well as familiar themes of school, transport and safety, makes for an engaging, entertaining and accessible way for readers to move from shorter stories to chapter books. Text, however, isn’t all that there is to keep readers on track.

Oodles of clever and funny illustrations show plenty of action to go with each scene’s text, giving numerous enjoyable visuals. Besides making the overall appearance of an early chapter book far less daunting than they could be, illustrations also ensure readers will take breaks between paragraphs, allowing them to build familiarity with the chapter book experience more easily.

This book is sure to bring out confidence in beginning readers and thereby a desire to try more books. This can only be a good thing. As such, this book is highly recommended for every school library at the very least but also an ideal gift for children just who are spring boarding into longer works.