New Zealand Spring Picture Books 2013:
by Trevor Agnew
Magical Margaret
Mahy Betty Gilderdale, Puffin,
120pp, pb, NZ$19.99
Henry’s Map David Elliot, Random House, 32 pp, pb,
NZ$19.99
Queen Alice’s
Palaces Juliette MacIver, ill. Lucia
Masciullo, ABC/HarperCollins, 32 pp, hb, NZ$29.99
Toucan Can! Juliette MacIver, ill. Sarah Davis, Gecko
Press, 32 pp, hb, $34.99; pb, NZ$19.99
BANG Leo Timmers, Gecko, 48 pages, pb, $19.99; hb, NZ$34.99
One Little Fantail
Anne Hunter, ill. Dave Gunson, Scholastic, 32pp, pb. NZ$19.50
The Importance of
Green Leonie Agnew, ill Trevor Pye
Puffin, pb, NZ$19.99
As many of the
late Margaret Mahy’s picture books are currently being re-issued, it is
valuable to have a freshly revised edition of Betty Gilderdale’s Magical Margaret Mahy. First published in 1987, it has always been an
excellent guide for young readers, answering the questions that Mahy was always
asked. (Do writers ever get rich? Are you
afraid of running out of ideas?). Gilderdale has woven Mahy’s answers (and her
own deep knowledge of Mahy’s books) into a lively readable account which
explains everything from the origin of the lion in the meadow to why the
teachers in her stories are often “of the
old-fashioned bullying kind.” Alan
Gilderdale’s illustrations of Mahy’s home and toys add to the warmth of the
anecdotes. This reader-friendly paperback brings the genius of the author fresh
off the page for a new generation of Mahy readers.
David Elliott is well-known as an illustrator of Margaret
Mahy’s work, and the frisky farm animals who first appeared in their
award-winning The Moon and Farmer McPhee
(2010) now return in Henry’s Map.
Henry is a fastidiously tidy piglet, who is upset at the untidiness of the farm
he lives on. ‘How could anybody ever find
anything out there?’ His solution is to draw a map “so that everyone knows what will belong where.’ First Henry draws
his own sty, and then he draws a picture of himself next to it. (Young readers
like the fact that Henry’s drawing and labelling techniques are – ahem –
childish. His spelling is pigletish.)
The other animals are delighted by Henry’s efforts and ask to be
included in his map. ‘Now,’ he said proudly, ‘we’ll know where
everything is.’
Henry leads all the animals up the hill. They look at Henry’s
map and then down at the farm.
‘But we’re not
there,’ bleated the sheep. The matter is sorted out with a charming and
satisfying ending. Elliot’s colour
illustrations are masterful, and full of little details like Henry picking
flowers to put in his sty. Young readers
delight in the moment when they find that they are smarter than the farm
animals. At the same time, they learn
all the basic principles of map-making. They also find satisfaction in Henry’s
dictum, ‘A place for everything and
everything in its place.’
By happy coincidence two of Christchurch author Juliette
MacIver’s picture books have appeared simultaneously. Both are excellent. Toucan
Can! demonstrates MacIver’s flair for word-play and rhythm. Toucan can do anything. ‘With the fry pan and a stew pan, he can juggle one-hand, two hand while
he cancans on a fruit can.’ Readers are invited to join in Toucan’s frolics
‘Surely, you can?’ In Sarah Davis’s
strikingly colourful illustrations, dozens of cute little birds dance along,
and are joined, as the rhymes accumulate, by a kangaroo, a panda and an
unidentified furry creature named Ewan who has some formidable aunts. The aunts
can’t dance but everyone else can, so the result is a splendid jamboree. This is a wonderful book for reading aloud –
for anyone who can cope with splendid tongue-twisters..
Queen Alice’s Palaces is a witty story,
told in verse, about sneaky Sir Hugh’s plan to persuade Queen Alice to build a
new palace, which he can then steal.
‘Why not build one
no one’s thought of before?
Something,
striking, original, new!’
Queen Alice builds no less than six strikingly original
palaces – all brilliantly and imaginatively realised by artist Lucia Masciullo
– but there is a hitch with every one. Delightfully each hitch involves a
disaster for the ‘cunning, conniving and
callous’ Sir Hugh. For example, when he tests the upper floor of the knitted
woollen palace, both the palace and Sir Hugh come undone. The bamboo palace
comes unstrung, the cheese palace goes rancid and a fire in the cockatoo
feather palace leaves Sir Hugh ‘with a
mouthful of plumes and a burn on the bottom.’ Juliette MacIver is already being
called a rising star in the world of picture books, and these two bouncy and
funny picture books confirm the claim.
Another Christchurch writer is Anne Hunter, who has
produced an imaginative bird identification book, One Little Fantail, based on the rhyme ‘Two little birdies.’ Thus
her rhyming text introduces familiar birds:
‘With their brown
feather cloaks and keen golden eyes,
They skim over
tussock and soar through the skies.’
And which bird is being described? Dave Gunson’s masterful
double-page colour illustrations should leave no doubt, but in a clever move,
the Maori and Pakeha names of the birds have been carefully camouflaged in their
portrait. (Kahu and harrier hawk, as young readers will have deduced.) The twelve subjects range from pukeko to kea,
and a three page fact section includes further information on all the birds.
Sometimes it’s the picture books with the fewest words
that provide the best incentive for close reading. Leo Timmers’ BANG contains only one word but young
readers will be scrutinising every page for the hilarious details of cause and
effect. Eight extremely eccentric vehicles, each driven by a different animal, become
interlocked in a series of rear-end collisions. Since their loads include
ice-cream, paint, fish, tyres, books, dresses, baby rabbits, fruit and
vegetables, each collision – with its joyously repeated signal of ‘Bang’ – leads to a new round of mayhem
and coincidence. The results are
colourful, imaginative and funny, concluding with a spectacular double-page
pull-out that provides a happy ending for everyone except the fish.
Finally The
Importance of Green by Leonie Agnew, is a charming and imaginative
introduction to the concept of colour, in the story of Liam ‘who could not and would not paint without
green.’ When Liam runs out of green paint, life becomes difficult inside
his paintings. Cars are trapped by red lights and cows have no grass. As mayhem
erupts in his pictures, Liam keeps experimenting with colours but nobody wants
to drink blue milk and the grasshoppers don’t like being orange. Then he adds
blue paint to yellow and makes an amazing discovery that brings happiness to
the cows, motorists, grasshoppers and, of course, Liam. Trevor Pye’s imaginatively-coloured
illustrations are an important element of this picture book’s appeal. A colour
wheel offers young readers a guide to future art experiments.
Trevor Agnew
Full Publishing details:
Magical Margaret
Mahy Betty Gilderdale, Puffin,
120pp, pb, $19.99 ISBN 978-0-143-56881-0
Henry’s Map David Elliot, Random House, 32 pp, pb,
$19.99 ISBN 978-1-77553-330-6
Queen Alice’s Palaces Juliette MacIver, ill. Lucia Masciullo,
ABC/HarperCollins, 32 pp, hb, $29.99
ISBN 978-0-7333-3102-2
hb, $34.99 ISBN 978-1-877467-53-0
Pb, $19.99 ISBN
978-1-877467-54-7
One Little Fantail
Anne Hunter, ill. Dave Gunson, Scholastic, 32pp, Pb. NZ$19.50 ISBN 978-1-77543-138-1
BANG Leo Timmers, Gecko, 48 pages,
paperback, $19.99 ISBN 978-1-877579-17-2
hardback, $34.99 ISBN 978-1-877579-18-9
The Importance of
Green Leonie Agnew, ill Trevor Pye
Puffin, pb, $19.99 ISBN
978-0-143-50571-6
