Nancy is worried. Her Mum doesn’t seem interested, but Nancy has a real problem. She’s told her teacher she has a Venus fly trap at home, and her teacher wants her to bring it in to school to show the class – tomorrow. The problem is, Nancy doesn’t really have a venus fly trap. She just wanted to have one, wanted to be the special one in the class.
Now, Nancy is working out what she is going to tell Miss Susan. Maybe she can tell her it ate too many flies and got sick. Maybe she can tell her that the cat next door knocked it out of the window. Or maybe she could tell her the truth.
As Nancy worries about what she is going to do, she pesters her mother and her step-father One-Two-Three Gee. As she listens to their stories she begins to form an idea. Maybe she can tell the truth and feel special.
Flytrap, by Meme McDonald and Boori Monty Pryor is a playful and inspiring book about telling all sorts of stories – made-up stories, animal stories, family stories and Aboriginal stories. The different stories are interwoven to create a brand new story for little Nancy.
This is the fifth book McDonald and Pryor have written together. Previous books include Maybe Tomorrow and My Girragunndji, winner of the 1999 Children’s Book Council Award for Younger Readers.
Flytrap uses a wonderful combination of black and white photographs – taken by McDonald and posed by students at Clifton Hill Primary school – along with drawings by Harry Todd and paintings by Lillian Fourmile.
Flytrap is an outstanding read for children aged 6 and up, and is suitable both for home reading and classroom sharing.
Flytrap, by Meme McDonald and Boori Monty Pryor
Allen & Unwin, 2002