The Dunderheads Behind Bars

The Dunderheads Behind Bars by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by David Roberts (Walker Books)
PB RRP $16.95
ISBN 9781406344752
Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

The Dunderheads are a cool group of kids, unconventional looking, but super-smart and resourceful. Each child has a special talent and a name associated with that talent. All together they are invincible.

School has finished for the year and the Dunderheads are glad to see the back of their teacher Miss Breakbone who hates kids. Rising star Ashley Throb-Hart, is filming in town and a call is out for extras. The Dunderheads get chosen to be in the playground scene, but so is Miss Breakbone.

A thief has been stealing expensive jewels around the area and the tyrannical Breakbone convinces her brother the Inspector, that Spider is the villain because of his climbing abilities, and Spider gets put in jail. The other Dunderheads draw up an elaborate plan to catch the real culprit but they end up in jail as well. Nothing will stop them for there’s always Einstein’s Plan B.

The illustrations by David Roberts are detailed, full of expression and movement, and highly comical. They bring Fleischman’s characters to life on the page and accentuate the text in a brilliant fashion.

This is the second Dunderheads book by Paul Fleischman who won the PEN USA Literary Award in 2010 for The Dunderheads, and the Newbery Medal for Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices. His latest picture book, the outstanding The Matchbox Diary, has just been released through Walker Books.

The Matchbox Diary

The Matchbox Diary by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline (Walker Books)
HB RRP $27.95
ISBN 9781406343779
Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

Newbery Medalist, Paul Fleishman is back with another impressive publication. The incredible beauty of this new book on the migrant experience is overwhelming. Its outstanding and detailed illustrations in acrylic gouache that accompany the emotive text, alternate between full colour and demure shades of black, brown and ochre, and visually express the struggle that formed migrant lives in the early migratory years. Reminiscent of Susanne Gervay’s Ships in the Field, The Matchbox Diary is a must for collectors of extraordinary picture books.

Great-grandfather is a collector of memories. “Pick whatever you like the most, and I will tell you its story”, he tells his great-granddaughter as she looks at all the items that decorate his home. She chooses a cigar box filled with matchboxes. Unable to read or write when he set out from Italy to America as a child, he diarised his life in these discarded matchboxes.

There was the olive pit that his mother gave him to suck when he was hungry and there was no food to eat. The folded photograph of his father helped him to remember what father looked like after he migrated to America and they waited for him to send for the rest of the family. A nib of a pen, reminded him of the schoolmaster’s son who read them his father’s letters; letters that were written for him by someone else.

 A piece of macaroni was the memory of the year there was no rain, so there was no macaroni. That was the year the tickets came for the family to sail to America at last. A lady’s decorative hair pin brought to mind the journey on the ship. The pin had fallen down from the upper deck where the rich people stood and looked out at the horizon. These and more, made up the valuable diary that documented his life for his progeny to learn about.