There’s a Crab in my Castle! He Pāpaka kei taku Pā!

 There’s a Crab in my Castle! 
He Pāpaka kei taku Pā!
Dawn McMillan,
Illustrator: Nikki Slade Robinson
Oratia Books (2024)
Picture book, Paperback,
32 pages
ISBN 978 1 99 00 4263 8

 

‘There’s a Crab in my Castle!’

‘He Pāpaka kei taku Pā!’

This funny bi-lingual picture book has both English and Māori text on the same page. Dawn McMillan uses verse to tell the story of a day at the beach seen – and this is important - through the eyes of an imaginative young girl. The girl builds a sandcastle and tells a story about each creature she sees on the sand or in the water. The crab is a king in the sandcastle while the flat sea biscuit is pretending to be the castle carpet. She sees busy sandhoppers cleaning the great hall. Her imagination paints vivid pictures:

‘Hermit crabs are climbing up the castle walls.’

‘Ko ngā kāunga e piki kē ana i nga pātū e te pā.’

The shellfish are enjoying a rock concert in the rock pool. The starfish is the star of course, while everyone likes the singing of the rock lobster.

The kina (sea urchin) surprises everyone by dancing on the kelp.

‘Kina’s dancing to the beat.

Ko kani a Kina ki te taki.’

As the tide comes in, the party comes to an end and the girl is called home for tea, but as the water washes his castle away, the crab makes a demand for a new one in the morning.

She promises to make ‘a castle fit for a king! He pā e tika ana mō te Kīingi!’

Nikki Slade Robinson’s charming colour illustrations really capture the mix of reality and fantasy which is the basis of this story. The girl’s lively imagination is reflcted in these lively pictures of sandhoppers with brooms, and a lobster clutching a microphone. The splendid endpapers show the joys of a day at the beach.

The Māori translation is by Stephanie Huriana Fong.

A couple of fact pages – Tidal Tidbits – provide brief profiles of each of the sea creatures featured in the story from limpets to stingrays. For those of nervous disposition the crab holds up a placard, ‘Nobody gets eaten in this book! Kāore tētahi e kainga i tēnei pukapuka.’

 

Trevor Agnew

23 October 2024  [Review 3721]

 

 

 

My Dad’s Runaway Bum!  Dawn McMillan Ross Kinnaird  

 

My Dad’s Runaway Bum! 
Dawn McMillan, ill. Ross Kinnaird
Oratia Books (2024)
Picture book, Paperback, 32 pages
ISBN 978 1 99 004254 6

 

‘An explosion! A blast! Something’s happening and it’s happening fast!’

This picture book is a sequel to I Need a New Bum! (2012), I’ve Broken My Bum! (2019), My Bum is So Noisy! (2021), My Bum is So Cheeky! (2022), My Bum is So Chrismassy! (2022), My Bum is So Spooky (2023) and My Bum’s on the Run! (2023).

By now the pattern is well established.

Our hero, the ‘boy in red pants,’ is disturbed to find that his father’s consumption of such dangerous foodstuff as cabbage and peas has caused a disaster. ‘Dad’s bum has blown off!’ Not only that, it has also run away. In bouncy rhymes, the errant buttocks escape down the street, with father and son in pursuit.

‘Past joggers in tights. Past bikers with lights.’

Several minor catastrophes and a major police pursuit later, there is a surprise solution to the problem. A difficult day ends with a son’s final warning to his father, one which may well be echoed by some readers.

Ross Kinnaird’s lively illustrations are brilliantly colourful and surprisingly tactful. The rogue bum remains discreetly clad in yellow boxer shorts throughout its independent existence. The family dog, familiar from previous adventures, has managed to insert himself into almost every picture, including a spell as a K9 officer in the police patrol.

 

Trevor Agnew 

 25 January 2024  [Review 3612]

I Need a New Bum! Activity Book  
Betsy Ochester, Dawn McMillan, Ross Kinnaird

 

I Need a New Bum! Activity Book   

Betsy Ochester and Dawn McMillan
Illustrator: Ross Kinnaird
Oratia Books (2024)
Activity book, Paperback, 48 pages
ISBN: 978 1 99 004246  

 

‘I woke up this morning

looking for puzzles to do.

I craved mazes and codes,

and word searches, too.’

This puzzle book is a companion volume to the Dawn McMillan’s picture book series about the boy who needed a new bum. This un-named lad (with his dog) acts as a guide through a range of brain-teasers, word games, art challenges, crosswords, code-crackers and mazes, all with buttocks-related themes. And flatulence-related themes too of course. There are puns and frog jokes and even designs for door-hanger signs.

As always, the boy’s dog, known as Dog, is in attendance throughout.

 

Trevor Agnew 

21 October 2024  [Review 3722]

 

 

Woolly Wally, Dawn McMillan, Ross Kinnaird, 2006

Papa’s Island, Melanie Drewery, ill Fifi Colston, Reed, Auckland, New Zealand, 2006, 24 pages, paperback, NZ $16.99 ISBN 1-86948-594-7

A Present from the Past, Jennifer Beck, ill Lindy Fisher, Scholastic, Auckland, New Zealand, 2006, 31 pages, paperback, NZ$16.99 ISBN 1-86943-744-6

Woolly Wally, Dawn McMillan, ill. Ross Kinnaird, Reed, Auckland, New Zealand, 2006, 24 pages, paperback, NZ$14.99 ISBN 1-86948-442-8

Clever Moo, Melinda Szymanik, ill. Malcolm Evans, Scholastic, Auckland, New Zealand, 2006, 24 pages, paperback, NZ$16.99 ISBN 1-86943-710-1

These four colourful New Zealand picture books fall neatly into two categories: two help young readers to experience some of the emotional impact of past wars, while the other two have some light-hearted fun with our most important animals.

Melanie Drewery’s Papa’s Island is an interesting picture book about a small girl’s messages to her father, an Italian interned on Somes Island as an “enemy alien” during World War 2. “We went to the beach and waved. We could see the island but we could not see him.” They send letters instead. Fifi Colston’s pictures have some historical inaccuracies but they capture the girl’s emotions as she misses her papa, as well as her joy when they are reunited. This book gives young readers an insight into an unusual aspect of wartime New Zealand.

The setting for Jennifer Beck’s A Present From the Past is modern Auckland, where young Emily receives an unusual Christmas gift that draws her into the experiences of her great-grandparents in World War One. At first Emily is doubtful. ‘Surely this battered old box wasn’t the ‘something special’ Aunt Mary had travelled from the other side of the world to deliver?’ The gift is one of the brass boxes of sweets, cigarettes and chocolate that Princess Mary had sent to servicemen and nurses at Christmas 1914. Aunt Mary explains to Emily how this particular box saved a nurse’s life and led to a marriage. Lindy Fisher’s illustrations are artistically splendid and use a wide range of symbols, although sometimes at the expense of the text’s legibility.

It’s hard to know which creature should represent our nation. One light-hearted candidate is Woolly Wally, a merino ram, immensely pleased with his fine fleece, and flock of ewes. “I walk the talk. See me strut!I am so tough! Watch me butt!” he boasts, in rhyming couplets. Wally’s pride takes a fall when the shearers arrive and he is soon “bare and bedraggled, skinny and thin”. Fortunately for Wally, he finds that we are not judged by appearances. Ross Kinnaird’s boldly sketched cartoons capture the spirit of Dawn McMillan’s sheep, even if it’s a little odd to see machine-shearing for merinos.

If not a sheep, then perhaps a cow? Margaret stands out among the other cows in Melinda Szymanik’s Clever Moo for several reasons. She wears spectacles and pearls, sings, reads books and has an alarming allergy. “It’s hay fever,” the doctor said, “You’re allergic to grass.” Malcolm Evans’ droll cartoons show Margaret’s quest for an alternative career. After failing as a model and TV News presenter, Margaret finds a remarkable and highly appropriate job that should make this funny book a popular item in every library.

In fact all four should be in every library. And home.

Trevor Agnew

First published in The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, on April 29th 2006.