Timo Parvela is a teacher and a best-selling author in Finland where many of his books have been adapted for both the big and the small screen. The main characters in Bicycling To The Moon have their own TV show and the author does regular school tours where their adventures are read and discussed.
You know you’re in safe hands when Oliver Jeffers tells a story. It’s not just because he’s an international award winner. It’s because Jeffers only tells a story if he has something important to say. And most often, just one point to make. Clearly. Simply. With very spare prose, delivered in his delightful trademark handwriting. And with deceptively uncomplicated images. But in What We’ll Build, the message runs deep.
When I was a child we didn’t ‘push the envelope’ or ‘test boundaries’, but sometimes we were naughty. And when we were, we were usually chastised for challenging authority. Children’s books reflected this view with a variety of cautionary tales, but luckily nowadays storytelling is not so dark.
Everything in Izzy’s world is just as it should be. She lives in a lighthouse with no sharp corners on a perfect island with her friend, Frank the seagull. They play special games in all weathers on ‘bluesky-sunny days’ and ‘gray-storm-rainy days’. And there are days where they do nothing but ‘count sand’. Her world is balanced, beautiful and safe. But one day, inexplicably, she has to move away. And instead of the glorious seascapes and dramatic night skies, Izzy finds herself in a big busy city with rules, regulations and other people.
This may just be the first positive book about the transformative power of cyber-bullying. Mireille, Astrid and Hakima have been voted the ugliest girls in their school in a nasty on-line competition that the teachers can do nothing to stop. It hurts. It isolates. It humiliates. But in a bold turning of the tables, it also empowers them to take action and transform their lives.
I love this little book. I am going to send a copy to every adult I know – well every parent maybe – so that they have an excuse to keep it. It is, as they say, so on the money.
The Dog Runner is a dystopian novel set in Australia, sometime in the near future.
Civilisation has disintegrated and the entire planet is in crisis because a lethal fungus has destroyed grains and grasses everywhere. So there is nothing for animals to eat, no dairy, no bread, no cereals, no crops of any sort – only starving wild animals to hunt and fight over.
Unhappy people do not always make great central characters. Being around a cynical, defensive know-it-all is not the most entertaining way to spend your time, but Tamsin Winter has created a very compelling protagonist with Jemima Small.
She’s a big girl with a big brain and a big mouth that she doesn’t always keep in check, and she has a big emotional hole inside her that needs filling up. By being less than likeable, Jemima has room to grow beyond the experiences that have shaped her, into a better, funnier more confident version of herself.
Joseph’s Cradle is a deceptively simple story with universal appeal. Written and illustrated by Jude Daly, it re-imagines a real-life experience that happened in Australia and re-frames it in the context of a small African village. The African proverb tells us that ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ and this story illustrates just how communities and individuals interact and grow together.
When Fly falls down a chimney and lands in an unknown space, it isn’t so unusual for her. Fly is a Chimney Sweep in London, at the time of King William, and she is used to being sent by nasty Bill to clean away soot and clean up any stray jewels or cash. What does give her pause, though, is that this time she has landed in the cage of a magnificent tiger and that, furthermore, she can talk to him. Somehow, the tiger knows more about her than she does, and Fly will travel with him to claim her royal title and her throne in a faraway land over the sea.
