October 2007 – Page 3 – Aussie Reviews

Requiem for a Beast, by Matt Ottley

Given that this is a large-format hardcover book with colour illustrations, one could be forgiven for momentarily thinking Requiem for a Beast is a picture book. However, any further examination quickly reveals that this offering cannot be so simply classified. Billed by the publishers as a graphic novel, Requiemis a unique blend of word, illustration and even music in a combination which almost defies description.

One of the most breathtaking aspects of this work is that it is all the work of one man – Matt Ottley who wrote the words, painted and drew the illustrations (in various media) and also composed the music on the accompanying CD (with the exception of some traditional Bundjalung songs). Together, these different forms explore different stories – that of a young man working on an outback station coming face to face with a rogue bull, the story of his childhood, and the stories of dispossessed Aboriginal people. The stories come together as the young man comes to realise that the errors of the past must be confronted before the future can be faced,.

Ottley’s full colour illustrations, using oil on canvas, oil on paper and coloured pencil include double page spread with minimal text, small cells with accompanying text, and spreads with no text and several smaller cells telling parts of the story and back story. Mythical beasts, close ups of horses and cattle, white space and more work together to create a stunning visual whole. The text is similarly diverse, from tracts of narrative, to Latin and Aboriginal language.

This is a ground-breaking work which a short review cannot do justice. It should be read and listened to and studied by all with a love of words, and art and music.

Wow.

Requiem for a Beast, by Matt Ottley
Lothian, 2007

This book can be purchased online at Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

Treading the Boards, by Celeste Walters

Mum is overjoyed. ‘My boy is treading the boards,’ she gushes, and throws her arms around me. She could simply have said, ‘He’s in a play.’ But you don’t know my mum.
Then she immediately rings Dad. ‘Thomas is strutting the stage,’ she announces. ‘He takes after us…What? No, not your family. My family. The artistic side.’
I have to listen to all this.

When it is announced that class 8B will be putting on a play, no one is less impressed than Tom. The only good thing is that he manages not to get a speaking part. Until his best friend unexpectedly leaves the country. Suddenly, Tom has a part to play – and a line to learn. A line which, if spoken incorrectly, could prove to embarrassing.

Still, it’s not all bad. The teacher, Mr Bloomer, has arranged for the lovely Miss Effington-Smythe to come along to rehearsals and offer some advice. She is beautiful – and Tom wants desperately to be noticed by her. Then Tom sees his father with another beautiful young woman, and his troubles really start. How can he get his dad to see the error of his ways?

Treading the Boards is a humorous novel for upper primary aged readers, with lots of silliness and some twists and turns, with some gentle exploration of issues including family break ups and first crushes . Mostly, though, it’s just a good fun read, likely to appeal to both boy and girl readers.

Treading the boards, by Celeste Walters
Little Hare, 2007

King of the Beasts, by Fiona McIntosh

The Queen began to weep, but Saxten continued, more gently now. ‘Isn’t this why Sherloc watched over me and finally called me back? You have already set up this confrontation, without knowing it. I am all we have between Severo’s rule and the true Kings of Drumminor. I have been blessed with a magic that gives us our one chance.’

Since discovering he was not an ordinary boy, but in fact the heir to the throne of a faraway land, Saxten has had to face many challenges. Now, in this final title in the Shapeshifter series, he must face a new, final challenge. He must seek out Coravel, the fearful king of the beasts, and seek his help in destroying Severo. But if Saxton wants Coravel’s help he must be prepared to make a huge sacrifice.

The Shapeshifter series is a set of four short fantasy titles which together form part if Omnibus’ new Fantastica imprint of accessible fantasy stories for primary aged readers. As the fourth title in the series, King of the Beasts is best enjoyed after the reading of the previous four titles, though it could be read in isolation.

Great for young fantasy fans and as an introduction to those new to the genre.

King of the Beasts, by Fiona McIntosh
Omnibus, 2007

The Butterfly Man, by Heather Rose

In Tasmania, Scotsman Henry Kennedy has been diagnosed with incurable cancer. He has just months to live. It is time to put his affairs in order – but Henry has a secret past, a past filled with events so terrible he cannot put them to rights. As his brain is affected by tumours, he struggles to keep his past and his present separate.

The Butterfly Man is a fictional story which uses a real murder mystery as a base. The true story is that of Lord Lucan, who went missing after allegedly murdering his children’s nanny in 1974. The novel explores a fictional life for Lucan after his disappearance, including time in Africa, a change of identity and a new life in Tasmania. However, the author does not attempt to solve the mystery of Lucan’s disappearance, instead using it to explore themes including secrets and their consequences.

The story is told in the first person voice of Henry/Lucan, with the stories of his last months, his time in Africa and the events of his marriage and the nanny’s death intertwined, so that readers are allowed to make assumptions and connections which are, at times, proved wrong. As we learn about Henry, we also learn about the life story of his partner, Lili, who has secrets of her own. Other characters also offer depth and interest – with Lili’s grandson, Charlie, and Henry’s friend Jimmy all proving intriguing.

First released in 2005, The Butterfly Man has been re-released. It is an absorbing read.

The Butterfly Man, by Heather Rose
UQP 2005, 2007

Tommy's Pet, by Guundie Kuchling

Tommy whispered.
‘Meilee, listen. I’ve got a pet.
My pet is cool. He’s a king.
He can sting. He’s flash and…fab!’

Tommy is excited about his new pet and wants to tell his friends. He whispers to his friend Meilee, but she is gone before he can tell her exactly what his pet is. So Meilee takes a guess from Tommy’s words and she tells Oliver. Oliver tells Alexa and on it goes. Each guess gets crazier and more outlandish, and includes a punk pig and a baker crocodile, until Melina challenges Tommy about his pet. All the friends run to Tommy’s place where Tommy repeats what he told Meilee. Even then there are wild guesses, until Tommy introduces his friends to his new pet. Then the game begins again.

The Chinese Whisper of Tommy’s friends passing on the news of his new pet runs in a blue ribbon across the top of each double-page spread. Their imagination and the animals they conjure fill the rest of each opening. There are clues in each spread as to what the next will reveal. The text is in red and black and varies in size and orientation, and each spread is full of colour and stylised images. There are simple rhymes to build the character and suggest the behaviour of the imagined pet. This is a fun, nonsense picture book that invites re-reading and reading aloud. Recommended for 2-5 year olds.

Tommy’s Pet, by Guundie Kuchling
Lothian Children’s Books 2007
ISBN: 9780734409287

The Surfing Scientist, by Ruben Meerman

The weirdest waves you can surf break in rivers, not at the beach. They come in twice a day and you can ride them for up to 10 kilometres upstream. They’re called tidal bores and are made by the incoming tide.

The Surfing Scientist is non-fiction, a collection of science tricks, explanations and facts. There are tricks that show how to levitate a ball, make cups fly, stand a can on an angle and make a coin jump from the neck of a bottle. Each opening includes step-by-step instructions, photos and a detailed explanation of the scientific principles behind the trick. The explanations detail how the principles demonstrated are relevant to everyone, not just scientists. For example, friction between feet and surfboard is a good thing to prevent slipping, whereas friction between axle and wheels in a skateboard is not good, hence the use of wheel bearings. There are also ocean animal and beach facts, environmental suggestions for the materials used in the tricks and suggestions for safe experimenting.

Ruben Meerman defines himself as surfer first then as scientist – hence the title. The subtitle ‘40 Cool Science Tricks’ gives the reader more idea of the contents. The cover design is appealing – bright and ‘informal’ and will entice many readers. The tricks (experiments) are laid out on double page spreads with instructions in an engaging conversational style. The trick is detailed on the left page, the explanation and other information on the right page. The ingredients/equipment required for the tricks can be found in most households. Where there is an extra element of skill required, parental supervision is suggested. The tricks range from scientific experiments to April Fool’s gags.

The Surfing Scientist will appeal to a wide range of readers, from mid-primary on, although with more supervision younger children would also enjoy the tricks. Older readers will gain from the explanations while reluctant readers may skim the explanation in favour of the tricks and the random facts. Recommended particularly for mid-primary to upper-primary readers, while many younger and older readers will also enjoy this science-based ‘magic’.

The Surfing Scientist, Ruben Meerman
ABC Books 2007
ISBN: 9780733320804

The River Sai, by Rebecca Edwards

Fifty winters, ninety winters, one hundred and thirty winters passed, while the stone monks sat and prayed in the snow, waiting for the women who never came. And then a mountain witch came. A yamamba, with ice in her bones and witch-fire crackling in her hair. A cruel yamamba, who ate the strong young men that villagers sent to conquer her, who led stray pilgrims to their deaths on lonely cliffsides, who hated children more than anything in the world.

Twelve year-old Harumi is unhappy when her mother and grandmother decide to leave Tokyo to reopen a family shop in a cold hill town. The shop is full of dusty boxes and cabinets and everywhere she turns, are fragile old things. She discovers a ‘shishi’, an ancient lion-dog and her adventure begins. Harumi is transported to another time. She meets an odd old woman and an enormous bear, who it seems have a mission for her. Thousands of child souls are stuck between this world and the next, being tortured by a demon Harumi’s quest is complex and physically demanding. She encounters dream-eating baku, stone jizo, witches hags and all manner of strange creatures before her journey ends.

The River Sai is a Japanese ghost story, set thousands of years ago. Harumi travels from the ‘now’ world to a very different time. There she is asked by a large bear to undertake a quest at the River Sai which separates the living from the dead. A witch has trapped children’s souls on the bank of the river. Harumi encounters extreme evil but also unexpected friendships as she seeks a way to free the souls. This is an exciting hero quest with a young girl as reluctant heroine. Although the Japanese mythology may be less familiar to readers than perhaps Greek or Roman equivalents, there are plenty of familiar archetypes here. There is a lovely richness to the word images, enhanced by the authors own illustrations throughout. Recommended for upper primary readers.

The River Sai, by Rebecca Edwards
UQP 2007

ISBN: 9780702236112

This book can be purchased online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

Stride's Summer, by Jenni Overend

Stride slid out of bed. He stood in the doorway, watching his mother outlined in the glow from the open fire. She had her back to him, her head down, her long fair hair swept to one side. The telephone was hanging loosely from her hand.
‘Mum?’ Stride’s voice was low and throbbed in his throat. ‘Mum?’
She turned, eyes wide, in the half light.
‘Oh, Stride, you’re awake…’
‘What is it?’
She didn’t answer.

Stride’s father has died in a fishing accident and everything in his world is changing. Annie, his sister is avoiding conflict and all Stride and his mother seem to do is fight. Ferd, his father’s sulphur-crested cockatoo, seems to be the only constant in their new post-dad world. And even Ferd is grieving. Stride takes over care of Ferd, determined to keep him close and therefore safe. The list of jobs to maintain their old house overlooking the ocean grows longer and longer as Stride struggles to understand. He meets Jess, a summer camper, who frustrates and intrigues him, and asks questions of his aging grandfather. Between them, and with the help of Ferd, they bring Stride to a better understanding of himself.

Stride’s Summer, set in a small Australian coastal town, explores the challenges facing an almost-adolescent boy following the untimely death of his father. His suffering is mirrored in the behaviour of the cockatoo his father raised from a chick. His new friend, Jess, cuts through his grief and helps him to accept some of the changes that follow his father’s death. Stride also learns to see other points of view, particularly those of his mother and his grandfather. Stride’s anger and confusion are sympathetically and realistically drawn as is his dawning interest in Jess. There are plenty of themes to explore, including the stages of grief, adolescence, aging and the sacrifices people make for those they love. Stride’s Summer is full of the intensity and hardship of an Australian summer. Recommended for upper-primary and lower-secondary readers.

Stride’s Summer, by Jenni Overend
Allen & Unwin 2007
ISBN: 9781741140842

This book can be purchased online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

Other books by Jenni Overend include:
Hello Baby, ill Julie Vivas

Five Minutes More – The Princess Who Could Not Choose and Two Brave Knights

‘Hello, I’m Faraway. Whose turn is it to tell a story today? Will it be Louisa? Will it be Florrie? Will it be Sam? Or will it be Georgie?’
‘It might be you, Faraway.’
‘Yes it might! Please will you stay, just for five minutes more?’

Based on a TV program, five furry friends take turns to tell stories from their patchwork quilt home. It’s Faraway’s turn to tell the story and he’s telling the story of The Princess Who Could Not Choose.’ The others help by acting it out, while one friend interjects with questions for clarification. In this story, Princess Dolores the Ditherer isn’t good at making decisions. Her father sends her two footmen to choose between. Dolores can’t decide and chooses them both. Choosing both proves a solution to some of her dilemmas until she encounters a situation where only one solution is possible. At the end of the story, the friends are again on the quilt, deciding what to do next.

In the second story, Two Brave Knights, it is Florrie’s turn to tell the tale. The others don appropriate costumes as townspeople, knights and a dragon The beautiful, tune-playing, perfect-time-keeping Elindrew clock has been stolen by a dragon. The townspeople call on the brave Sir Percival and Sir Ganymede to help retrieve their town treasure. Led by the dragon’s boasting song, the intrepid knights travel into the forest to find the dragon and retrieve the town clock. When the story is finished, the patchwork quilt friends decide to act out the story again, playing different roles.

This series, based on the TV program, was developed to foster a love of storytelling in children. The story-outside-the-story demonstrates how children can create or retell stories, using teddies and the like for characters. Photo-illustrations show characters both in costume and out. The stories are newly-created fairytales and suitable for preschool-age children in both content and length. Each is gentle and imaginative, with simple images and pastel pages. These hardback titles are smaller than a picture book, larger than a chapter book and will fit well into little hands. The cover of each title includes pictures of the five friends and a patchwork image of the story within. Panels on the patchwork quilt suggest other stories and could be used to encourage children into their own favourite or new stories. Recommended for 3-5 year olds.

Five Minutes More. The Princess Who Could Not Choose, by Jan Page and Mellie Buse
ABC Books 2007
ISBN: 9780733321382

Five Minutes More. Two Brave Knights, by Jan Page and Mellie Buse
ABC Books 2007
ISBN: 9780733321375

These books can be purchased online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

Captain Cal Books 1 & 2, by Jan Dallimore

My name is Captain Cal and I am in charge of The Silver Pig – an Intergalactic Probe Spaceship.
My crew and I keep planet Earth safe from evil aliens and other space terrors. We were also the official tasters of my mum’s secret recipe chocolate cake.

When the call comes from BAIT (Bureau Against Interplanetary Trickery), Captain Cal and his crew, Co-pilot Ebby and Chief Navigator Dan, are ready for their first adventure. They launch The Silver Pig and set off to save the Earth from total destruction by the evil Bloggs (Biggest Losers of the Greater Galaxies). They land on Capricorn as an overheating The Silver Pig struggles to survive a massive space storm. The valiant crew must disable the Blogg spaceship and repel a multitude of the evil Bloggs.

The second adventure sees Captain Cal and his crew called on to save Earth from being buried beneath mountains of rubbish. The Grotts, messiest aliens in the Galaxy, keep sending all their junk to earth. The brave crew use the Centro-sucker Magnetised Vacuum Maximiser to suck up all the rubbish and dump it in a Black Hole. Unfortunately, they accidentally suck up a Grott. With the Grott headed for the Black Hole, it looks like the crew could be in strife.

This is a new series, pitched at emergent readers (particularly boys), with illustrations on every page. Exciting adventures are launched from the backyard, using simple props and a healthy dose of imagination. High tech solutions are achieved using low tech components. The main characters are introduced in each book and a Contents page lists chapters like ‘The Slosher Washer’ and ‘Hopping Mad’. The final pages offer extras like a quiz and space information. Add shiny covers and cartoon-like illustrations to the exciting and satisfying stories, and it’s easy to see these short chapter books finding a devoted readership. Recommended for 6-8 yo readers.

Captain Cal Space Warrior, by Jan Dallimore, ill Richard Morden
black dog books 2007
ISBN: 9781921167812

Captain Cal and the Grotts by Jan Dallimore, ill Richard Morden
black dog books 2007
ISBN: 9781921167829