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Review: Are You The Easter Bunny?

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By now, most of us have heard of the Easter Bilby. A cute long-eared, pointy-snouted, nocturnal marsupial native to Australia’s arid lands aka the Australian Easter Bunny. But when a trio of young desert dwelling birds encounter their very first bilby, they are in need of a bit of convincing that this critter is not in fact EB Og. And who better to persuade them than Bilby himself. In lilting rhyming verse, Bilby escorts his curious companions through an intriguing list of his best qualities. What makes this adventure so alluring however, is the choice of descriptive wordplay Janeen Brian employs to do so. Bilby’s eyes become his peepers , two tall pink straight-ups are his ears and his scratcher-scritchers …? Well, you be the judge. Clues are secreted in follow-up verse as Bilby explains what each of these features help him do, eat, and shelter from. The results are both delightfully informative and hilariously goofy. I will never be able to look at my dogs’ wagging tails again ...
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Review: The Drover's Son

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Connections. I like the serendipitous ones the best. Unplanned, organic, braided by curiosity, like mindedness or rapt admiration. Which is how I embarked on a fascinating exchange with Dub Leffler , book illustrator, animator, mixed media artist, storyteller and foremost, proud Bigambul man. I knew and had admired Dub’s work from books co-created by industry mates of mine but the artist’s true identity remained a mystery to me, one I’ve only began to appreciate through his daily social media story shares. Visual musings. Sneak peaks, Animations camouflaging a more encompassing tale, too abridged for the small screen. It felt like I was glimpsing something slightly off stage, in the wings, waiting full exposure … I recognised part of what I saw, faces and images that seemed poignantly familiar. More than drafts and spreads, these late night, early dawn reveals were the heartbeats of a soul of a story soon to become a stirring new picture book, The Drover’s Son. Penned by Leah Pur...
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The 2026 Hans Christian Andersen Jury Recommends

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Something for your TBR lists! Every two years, the IBBY Executive Committee (International Board on Books for Young People) elects the international jury of experts from nominations submitted by the IBBY Sections. All the candidates nominated for the  Hans Christian Anderson Award have made outstanding contributions to children’s literature in their countries and are selected by the IBBY Sections; a complete list of the 78 candidates to the 2026 Awards can be seen here. I was hoping to attend the 40th IBBY Congress this year because of the theme, Listening to Other's Voices - increasingly crucial in a world of diminishing abilities to actually hear what is going on. Also because it's in Ottawa, Canada! A place of distant relatives and long-held yearnings to visit. Alas, next time ...  Meantime, I'll content myself with this Jury Recommends list chosen by the judges as recommended reading from the many nominations received for their Awards, because -  The Jury feels t...
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Open For Business!

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Well, hello there! They say sabbaticals are the just the ticket for restoring one's sense of direction and refreshing one's perspectives, even unintentional ones. Avid followers, yes I'm talking to all three of you(!), may recall I made a soft promise a couple of years ago to level up with my posting. Who knew an intergalatic time warping conspiracy would reduce those 730 days into mere seconds!   During that crazy time shift, I didn't mean to neglect my ad nauseam sharing here. That part of my mo has not altered. I've just shifted my oversharing to other platforms, more easily updated on the run, accessible to a wider audience, more 2026 and less 2009 where I still feel at home!  Life has an endlessly fascinating and perplexing way of unfurling or rather unravelling at times. Best to let yourself tuck and roll with it I've come to appreciate. So here's a wee update and reaffirmation: Life stuff: still here! My life is probs no more extraordinary than yours....
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Double Dipping: Wheels & Tractors

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If you’ve got a truck, car, vehicle mad toddler in the house, find yourself a copy of these two brilliant picture books, stat. I love the sheer vibrancy and verve of Wheels and Tractors – two separate standalone titles that fulfill every wheeling, tractor obsession you could want. Wheels is my personal favourite but the other titles by these best-selling creators in the Roadworks series are equally compelling. Two kids are witness to a never-ending parade of wheels. Rumbly, grumbly wheels, yucky mucky wheels, tiny shiny wheels . We are told wheels go fast and wheels go slow , but the trick is guessing exactly which vehicle belongs to each spread of wonderful wheely verse. And wonderful it is. Perfect rhythmic, onomatopoeic descriptions draw youngsters in and set them up for the fun reveals. Visual clues provided by Lovelock’s energetic pigmented inked illustrations further enhances this excellent guess-what-it-is experience. Tractor is equally attractive in sound and visual a...
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An Apology, A Promise and A Quest

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Hi guys! Remember me? The part-time blogger (what’s a blog?), erstwhile reviewer. This post title sounds like a new novel, doesn’t it? I wish it was. Truth be known, not a lot of new words have been written this year, either as a burgeoning story, or blog post, or even in my diary. It’s just been one of those years. We’ve all had ‘em. But about this (as yet) unwritten novel … Let me explain. An Apology Remember how it was one of those years? Loss, shock, anger, frustration. Realisation, resignation, enlightenment, hope. A veritable rollercoaster of ups and downs and those horrid tummy-turning tight bends. I normally don’t mind an adrenaline filled experience but 2024, seriously! So, the gazillion reviews I’d hoped to clear this year got somewhere left behind in the G force of life. Apologies to the creators, publishers, publicists and me who expected more. But ... ‘Sometimes not getting what you want is the best luck of all’ A Promise It’s not all gloom and doom, though. Far from it. ...
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Review: Where To Hide A Star

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Oliver Jeffers' exciting and thought-provoking picture book stories orbiting around the Boy, have a new out-of-this-world addition, Where To Hide A Star . Among the boy’s many loves is his predilection for playing hide and seek with his two besties, penguin and the star. Neither of them is much good at counting or hiding imaginatively but that hardly matters when the real gain behind the game is spending time with your friends. Until one day, through an unplanned misadventure, the boy loses track of the star. Try as he might, he genuinely is unable to find the star so decides to call in the big guns, aka the Martian, who unquestionably knows more about stars than him. Thanks to a neat bit of Martian tech and a good deal of happenstance, they trek star’s whereabouts all the way to the North Pole, where it turns out, it is very much not lost. Star had found a new friend; a girl who has always dreamed of having a star as a playmate. An inevitable Mexican standoff ensues. How do...
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