Reviewed by Wendy Lipke The creator of this book is Hana Kinoshita Thomson, a Japanese-American-Australian illustrator, designer and author. As well as creating her own hard covered rabbity books she is an in-house book designer at Allen & Unwin. This square children’s hard-covered picture book is dedicated to her parents and anyone who loves rabbits.
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke This hard-cover children’s book by Andrea Rowe and illustrated by Lisa Coutts tells the story of a young girl called Audrey who skips across the Melbourne skyline during a particular time in history. The story highlights good times and times when parents worry how they will pay the bills and people
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke As a past educator I am aware that trying to change what a child has first learned is not easy. Yet I also know that children respond to and remember what is funny and even sometimes ridiculous. Information is more easily absorbed if it is related to the child’s activities. Author,
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve This collection of stories, some with the familiar theme of the wicked stepmother and others with a fresh idea of a spider that makes hot pepper soup and resorts to trickery, is quite different from the Grimm and Hans Anderson tales which were frequently cruel and harrowing. Many of these are
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke It was just Lavender and her mum and often Lavender found herself sitting outside waiting for her mum, when she went in for a noggin of rum, with the promise of fetching something to fill their bellies. One day as she was waiting in the fine cold rain, she was rescued
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke This is a beautifully presented, hard covered, square, children’s picture book written by Catherine Barr and illustrated by Chaaya Prabhat. Catherine writes non-fiction books that aim to inspire children to explore, understand and take action to protect the natural world. She has written over 35 books to spark conversation and curiosity
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke This children’s book by American writer, Amy Timberlake, is the third in her Skunk and Badger stories. Because of the author’s nationality some of the words in this story were new to me, such as mukluk which I discovered is a sealskin or reindeer-skin boot typically worn by Indigenous peoples of
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke This hardcovered, 30x24cm, children’s picture book was produced as the result of a collaboration between children of Yalingbu Yirramboi – The Royal Children’s Hospital school – and two award-winning children’s authors, Alison Lester and Jane Godwin. The book begins with a question, “If you could travel wherever you choose, to worlds
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Christmas Time is the fourth book in the Early Learning first word books by Tom Jellett. This Aussie Baby’s, six-inch board book has twenty- two pages of content, including the covers. It follows other books with words addressing Dinner Time, Bed Time and Bath Time. The pictures are large with the
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Over the past several years Lothian Children’s Books have published work belonging to a set of illustrated Encyclopaedia on animals by natural history illustrator, Sami Bayly. The illustrations in these books are watercolours while the line drawings on the pages which provide interesting facts are produced by pen. The first of
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Inga Simpson, author of the children’s picture book, The Peach King, has created a story to remember not just the devastation wrought by the bush fires which impacted the south coast of N.S.W. during the Black Summer of 2019-2020, but to celebrate the renewal of life as things recover after such
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke In 2025 there appear to have been several children’s picture books by First Nation’s talented writers and illustrators sharing their love of country and dreaming tales. As the title of this latest book implies it is about Aboriginal beliefs surrounding the beginning of time which they call, Dreaming. This book by
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke This book, by American Tess Thomas and artwork by Kamwei Fong, is a square children’s picture book about our feelings. It talks about when we feel happy and when we are sad, angry or scared and what happens when we keep these feelings bottled up inside ourselves. This makes us feel
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke This publication, by Max Hamilton, is not the first children’s book with this title, but this latest version is an interesting read with no doubt different examples from those found in the other books. The author has taken examples from across the world but mainly from Australia and the USA. However,
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Catch is the story of sixteen-year-old Beth who discovers a hidden talent viz a nausea attack signalling someone is in danger of falling followed by a new ability to catch the person before he/she can self-harm. Having this skill brings challenges and with them responsibility. It is soon revealed that the