At Home on the Farm Ned Barraud
At Home on the Farm (2025)
Ned Barraud (text and illustrations) 
Picture book, 24 pages, Scholastic
ISBN 978
1 77543 909 7
‘At home on the farm, it’s as dry as a
bone.’
Ned Barraud, already renowned as an
illustrator, has written an enthralling account in verse of a farm in the grip
of a drought. His account moves across the parched farm paddocks, like scenes
from a film, showing the various animals and birds and how they cope with the
heat.
‘At home on the farm, the dogs’ work
is done.
Now they are snoozing out in the sun,
itching and scratching, in the heat of
the day.
while blowflies are buzzing about where
they lay.’
Of course, Ned Barraud’s illustrations
are a perfect match for his lyrical words. Each double-page spread shows a
typical group of animals or birds responding to the heat of the day. The horses
and sheep shelter from the sun in the shade of trees. The magpies are strutting
on the bone-dry paddock. A cat hunts mice in the hayshed and a red admiral
butterfly lands by some gorse blooms. A shade-seeking hare shelters behind a
fencepost.
The story opens with a kāhu (harrier
hawk) flying above the farm at dawn, silhouetted against the blazing sun. ‘Against
a fierce sun kāhu circles alone.’ The conclusion comes at evening as the
hawk soars before a dark bank of clouds sweeping towards the farm.
‘The skies open up and …FINALLY … it pours!’
At Home on the Farm offers an original
approach to a familiar topic, enabling young readers to experience the extremes
of weather and the change of seasons.
Its magnificent illustrations offer readers an inviting open door to a
vividly depicted landscape. Young readers may get their first inklings of the
impact of climate change by reading this book.
3 June 2025
MOONMAN
Moonman (2014)
Paperback: ISBN 978 1 927213 27 8
Hardback: ISBN 978 1 927213 28 5
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