The Anzac Puppy

The Anzac Puppy by Peter Millett, Illustrated by Trish Bowles (Scholastic NZ)

PB RRP $15.99

ISBN 978-1-77543-097-1

Reviewed by Jenny Heslop

'In the middle of the night, in the middle of the winter, in the middle of a war, a puppy was born.'

Lucy names the puppy Freda but sadly the family cannot afford to keep her so a passing young soldier, Sam, adopts her and takes her with him to war. Sam and Freda become fast friends, comforting each other through harsh times on the battle front, with Freda becoming a mascot for all the young men fighting in the trenches.

The Anzac Puppy is a beautifully written book. It is a story about the realities of war, the hardships, the friendships and love. It has wonderful sentence construction with much internal repetition such as 'The long, cold nights at the front soon turned into long, terrifying months'. This is a lovely story to read.

The illustrations are soft and sensitive, depicting the emotions of people along with the bleakness and isolation of war and the warmth of reunion.

Inspired by the true story of Freda, a Great Dane who was mascot to the NZ Rifle Brigade during World War I, the author has done meticulous research. The facts of this ‘real’ Freda are given in an equally readable illustrated double page spread at the back of the book.

Ending on a positive note, the echoing of the story’s beginning creates a satisfying conclusion which will appeal to early primary aged children, especially dog lovers.

My Daddy Ate an Apple

My Daddy Ate an Apple [with CD] by Craig Smith, illustrated by Scott Tulloch (Scholastic NZ)
PB RRP $16.99
ISBN 978-1-77543-200-5
Reviewed by Jenny Heslop

There’s a classic joke that was a favourite in our house for some time. What is worse than finding a worm in your apple? A: Finding half a worm.

This very silly book (good silly) explores exactly this idea. When Zebra’s daddy eats an apple he accidently eats a worm as well. And the consequences are not too good for poor Daddy.

Kids are going to love the funny story, sing-song lyrics, and fabulous illustrations which enhance the humour. The worm - it was a fuzzy one, a buzzy one, a great big fat juicy one –also stars in many of the pictures and has as big a personality as the daddy zebra. The picture of the worm hanging on to Daddy’s tonsils before being swallowed is very funny. I also love the trip to hospital on the elephant ambulance, and the nurses (monkeys) taking Daddy’s x-ray, and ... I could go on. The illustrations are delightful.

The words fit cleverly into a well-known tune and kids are going to love how Daddy’s stomach ache is resolved. Craig Smith plays the guitar and sings the song on the accompanying CD and will keep young children happily entertained and engaged. Smith is also the author of the wildly silly and very popular The Wonky Donkey.  

She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain

She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain [with CD] sung by The Topp Twins, illustrated by Jenny Cooper (Scholastic NZ)
PB RRP $16.99
ISBN 978-1-77543-172-5
Reviewed by Jenny Heslop

This is a fun song, sung with great enjoyment and gusto by The Topp Twins on the CD which comes with She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain. Most young children will have fun with the beat and country twang and the repetitive nature of the song makes it easy for kids to learn and sing along to.

Much of the fun of this book also comes from the illustrations and the antics of the animals who are anticipating her arrival- a very cheeky looking girl with bright red curls and blue striped pyjamas. Jenny Cooper has illustrated two other Topp Twin recordings – Do Your Ears Hang Low? and There’s a Hole in My Bucket – and brings the same lively amusement to She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain as she has to these previous picture books.

Preschool children are going to be saying ‘Read it again, Mum’ and ‘Play it again, Mum’ many times over.

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?

The House that Wonky Built

The House that Wonky Built [with CD] by Craig Smith, illustrated by Katz Cowley (Scholastic NZ)
PB RRP $24.99 (includes CD & activity kit)
ISBN 978-1-77543– 115-2
Reviewed by Jenny Heslop

The House that Wonky Built is an activity pack inspired by and including the well loved picture book The Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith. 

‘I was walking down the road and I saw ... a donkey. He had only three legs ... And one eye! He was a winky wonky donkey.’

The rhythm of the words, the build up of the repetition and the increasingly difficult tongue twisting end line all make this story a delight to read no matter how many times you are called to.

The illustrations by Katz Cowley are fabulous. The Wonky Donkey’s character is portrayed through his cheeky grin and is charming, playful and attractive despite his three legs, one eye and bad smell. The little bird, who follows Wonky through the pages, is a great character too. This small yellow companion experiences the donkey’s characteristics for us. He faints at Wonky’s bad smell, flies off with the donkey’s eye, and plays Wonky’s honky tonk music on the gramophone. My favourite picture is Bird sitting in the grass looking up at Donkey, emphasising the clever perspective from below, making Wonky Donkey look tall and slim.

The activity pack with the book includes a play set, removable stickers and a cd. This play set folds out to create Wonky’s stables, three rooms and an outdoor area. Along with this are several pages of foldable furniture and accessories to create Wonky’s world, as well as Wonky Donkey and Bird. I especially love the inclusion of the coffee machine and pot. This has all been cleverly created by paper engineer Phillip Fickling.

While playing with Wonky Donkey and recreating the story, children can listen to the very amusing CD included in the kit. The honky-tonky tune is performed by Craig Smith.

This book can be enjoyed from a very young age, but the play set is best suited for over six year olds. Even at this age, children will need adult help to construct the furniture as it is more complex than paper dolls, but there are hours of fun to be had during and after construction. I think upper primary children would enjoy the humour and ingenuity of the furniture, stables and ‘setting up house’.

Do Your Ears Hang Low?

Do Your Ears Hang Low? sung by The Topp Twins, illustrations by Jenny Cooper (Scholastic NZ)
PB RRP $16.99
ISBN 978-1-77543– 104-6
Reviewed by Jenny Heslop

Do Your Ears Hang Low? is a well known and very catchy song. I’m sure most people know the tune. This book version is fantastically illustrated by Jenny Cooper and features the cutest animals with amazing ears, including a sheepish looking basset hound with his ears tied in a bow, a buck toothed llama with ears standing high and a charismatic mouse who directs the action throughout.

My nine-year-old daughter read this and was immediately singing the song for days, adding her own words and flavour as she went. Kids have so much fun with the words:

   Do your ears flip-flop?
   Can you use then as a mop?

and the total silliness of the suggestions:

    Can you semaphore your neighbour
    With a minimum of labour?

The pictures are truly humorous and endearing. I especially love the cover illustration of the mouse, pulling the hound along by his ears. Cooper is brilliant at capturing animals and the expressions on their faces.

There are plenty of easy actions kids that can add to the tune as they sing-along and the interaction continues to the last page where the reader can check out their own ears on the mirror provided.
At the end are some astonishing, silly and funny facts about ears.

The accompanying CD has two tracks, one with The Topp Twins singing Do Your Ears Hang Low? and one with the instrumental version for anyone to sing along to. This book is entertaining and perfect to share with kids from pre-school age up.

Dinosaur Rescue – T-Wreck-a-saurus

Dinosaur Rescue – T-Wreck-a-saurus by Kyle Mewburn and Donovan Bixley (Scholastic New Zealand) 
PB RRP $5.00 special price 

ISBN 9781775430193

Reviewed by Dawn Meredith

Stone Age men don’t go hunting every day. It’s too much hard work. They only hunt when they get sick of eating nuts and berries. (The Never-before-told Secret of Stone Age Hunting, p52).

This crazy, fun book is part of a series in which the creators explore the idea that cave men lived in the age of dinosaurs, while acknowledging fully that they didn’t. It’s a fun notion. The protagonist, Arg, is a ‘caveboy genius’ who puts up with his less than intelligent, ape-like family and friends:

“But Arg’s mum had just scratched her armpits and yawned, It was way too complicated for her little brain to understand. She didn’t even know what a brain was… ‘Big trouble, Arg scream.’ His mum said.”

Arg finds smart ways to elude being eaten by a T-Rex. His faithful companion, a microceratops, Krrk-Krrk is a scaredy-saur, but provides comic relief at the right moment. There is a strong sense of the simplistic ethics of the caveman, necessitated by their ‘you could die any moment’ existence - When annoying Gurg gets chomped by a T Rex driven mad by itchiness Arg shrugs. He never liked Gurg anyway. A playful development sees the T Rex and Arg discover to their mutual astonishment that the other can speak and the realization that dinosaurs are in fact endangered.

The drawings and concepts are laugh-out-loud funny in this nicely finished volume. There’s lots of gross bits boy readers will love, including this little gem on page 13:

“She [Mum] stared at him suspiciously. Then she shoved her finger deep into her nose. When she pulled it out again, there was a big chunk of soft, green snot on the end. She studied it a second before popping it in her mouth.”

YUUUUUK! When I read this bit aloud to one of my students he made a face then laughed and said “That’s so cool!” I think Mewburn and Bixley have got it right with this particular audience, in the tradition of Andy Griffiths. An additional book in the series, Dinosaur Rescue – Stego-snottysaurus (ISBN 9781775430209) explores Arg’s quest to stop a dinosaur from getting people flu.

Dawn Meredith writes from the Blue Mountains. She was awarded a May Gibbs Writer’s fellowship in 2011 and her brand new book, The Anything Shop was released in October. You can follow her exploits here: www.dawnmeredithauthor.blogspot.com

The Four Powers of Daren Saner

The Four Powers of Daren Saner by Michael Oehley (Scholastic NZ) 

PB RRP $15.99 

ISBN 978186439453

Reviewed by Dawn Meredith

Daren Saner lives in the future, on the spaceship Superia which has been traveling for almost one thousand years in search of a new home. But Daren also has another identity, one which will be revealed to him the instant he touches a sacred jewel, an ancient relic of Peripoli. Daren travels back four thousand years to the ancient city, where his other persona, Daren Saredes lives with his sick mother on the floating platforms of Osheanus.

The Daren onboard the Superia is always getting into trouble and the Daren living a thousand years before is no different. But, unlike his future self, the Daren of Periapoli has innate powers, as does everyone of that time, who are restricted by their social caste and limited to two of the four types of powers: earth, air, water and fire.

Daren Saner soon discovers not only does he possess all four powers,  he is the Forbidden Child and sentenced to die.

Onboard Superia, Daren has Sela and Boron as his close friends. In ancient Periapoli, Daren finds himself captive and friendless onboard an ocean going vessel with a fierce captain and cutthroat sailors.

Daren’s journey is simultaneously occurring in the past and in the future. He must solve riddles, negotiate with criminals and above all, be brave and independent. Not only is he the Forbidden Child, fighting to fulfill a prophecy, he is also the cause of a major malfunction of the master computer onboard the Superia, which is leading the ship and all its inhabitants towards disaster. Even his parents don’t believe his story.

This is Michael Oehley’s first novel and based upon an idea that had been kicking around inside his head since childhood. I’m glad he finally released it! It’s a great read, full of excitement and with all the essential elements of the genre.

Dawn Meredith writes from the Blue Mountains and is a May Gibbs Fellow 2011. You can follow her exploits at www.dawnmeredithauthor.blogspot.com