'From Seagulls to the Somme': Margaret Robson Kett reviews six new picture books

From a rosy-cheeked preschooler to a glaring nationalist, this survey of recent children's pictures books features characters for readers of all ages. Emerging and established Australian picture-book makers demonstrate the range of talented storytelling available in this genre. Hattie Helps Out by Jane Godwin and Davina BellFreya Blackwood is one of Australia's hardest working illustrators. At the Children's Book Council ceremony, she won three of the five national awards – Younger Readers, Early Childhood, Picture Book. Here is another of her sturdy, curly-headed heroines in Hattie Helps Out (written by Jane Godwin & Davina Bell, Allen & Unwin, $24.99 hb, 32 pp, 9781743435434). Hattie is eagerly helping Mum prepare for Dad's birthday party, and, in her toddler way, only making more work. These preparations, as well as looking after baby Lottie, have left them both exhausted and they doze off. Hattie wakes from the nap and helps out by doing most of Mum's remembered list by herself. Blackwood's distinctive layout is the cinematic view of the general chaos that is life with small children. Hattie is in the uniform of the busy three-year-old – a T-shirt and leggings – ideal for chair-climbing, table crawling, and vigorous sweeping. Despite the scribbly lines and wild hair, there is mastery in the figures coloured and cut out for placement in double spreads. There is nothing cloying or overly sentimental here: the book will resonate with both parents and children under five. Seagull by Danny Snell Seagull thinks 'How curious, how awkward' when she becomes entangled in a discarded fishing line with sinker attached. Danny Snell's working of acrylic colours to evoke sea and sky is the best feature of his new book Seagull (Working Title Press, $24.99 hb, 32 pp, 9781921504815). Snell has scanned and collaged the accumulating rubbish that weighs down Seagull: a black-and-white photogravure contrast to the peachy gold of the sand. Flying makes 'her heart sing', but to get back in the air she requires help. In a concession to the target age group of three-to eight-year-olds, the biological reality of predation is overlooked as a mullet, a crab, and a pelican tug on the fishing line around her foot to try to 'loosen it a little'. Finally, a boy helps her as she '[nips] him gently'. Feet and legs intact, she flies free over a pristine seascape. No Place Like Home by Ronojoy GhoshGeorge is 'quite the grump'; he doesn't even like ice-cream. 'He had forgotten where home was. He knew the city didn't feel like home.' Author–illustrator Ronojoy Ghosh has created an urban-dwelling polar bear, George, as the hero of his book No Place Like Home (Random House, $24.99 hb, 32 pp, 9780857988461), Ghosh has a fine illustrative style, reminiscent of Jon Klassen with a smidge of Hokusai. Small expressive marks delineate George's coat, the roof of his house, water and the moon, and the confection colouring is perfect. George's frank gaze is disquieting as he sets out to find his true home. The narrative of the exquisite endpapers seems wasted, as the early ice-cream set-up melts away. At a time when polar bears are struggling to survive, the final scene with George sitting on an ice floe knitting jumpers for birds is startlingly off-message. Cyclone (Jackie French and Bruce Whatley, Scholastic, $24.99 hb, 32 pp, 9781743623596) continues a series that began with Flood (2011) and Fire (2014). The storm that destroyed Darwin in 1974 is portrayed by Whatley with an acrylic wash that drips Cyclone by Jackie French and Bruce Whatleyand weeps over his pencilled lines. The scenes rendered in greys and sepias have a nightmarish quality. (Many of the images were taken from newspaper reports and photographs of the time.) As with the other titles, the emphasis is on survival, not the death toll. Soft colour creeps back with the rebuilding and provides a positive end for the story – Christmas always comes again. French's rhyming is not always suited to the documentary approach of the book –'But Santa's sleigh is on its way! How can wind hurt Christmas Day?' – but her pacing and rhythm are ultimately respectful. A Solder a Dog and a Boy by Libby HathornPhil Lesnie's imagined Somme landscape of 1917 is a bucolic plain of distant poplars and waving grass; the only reference to the conflict are fields of poppies bleeding into the undergrowth in A Soldier, a Dog and a Boy by Libby Hathorn (Lothian, $14.99 hb, 32 pp, 9780734416377). Albert, an Australian soldier, wanders across the fields and meets a dog. Hathorn's text is told almost entirely in the soldier's voice in a one-sided conversation. In describing his life at the front, Albert decides to adopt the dog – teach it tricks, share bully beef, snuggle down together in the trenches. When the small orphaned boy who owns the dog turns up, he becomes part of the plan. Despite its historical accuracy, the idea that living beings are co-opted by others as 'mascots' is disquieting and does not deserve the walk-into-the-sunset ending it receives in this book. The story of the French boy who was smuggled back to Australia from the Western Front in a sack – the photograph which partially inspired Hathorn's text – has been told by Anthony Hill in his book Young Digger (2002) which will be reissued in a new edition in June 2016. Hathorn's soldier remarks, 'this war will be all over some time soon ... three years is too long.' Amen to that for production of picture books on the topic. Australia to Z by Armin GrederArmin Greder has produced confronting, vivid picture books before (The Island (2007) and The City (2010). His review of contemporary life is the alphabetical Australia to Z (Allen & Unwin, $29.99 hb, 32 pp, 9781760113186) Is the child on the front cover raising the flag or pulling it down so that his mate on the back can wear it dragging behind him like a cape that will never fly? This is only one of the questions raised by this masterful artist, which will have the viewer of this picture book for mature readers squirming. The broad theme of the book is Australians as consumers ('CALORIES','IKEA', RUPERT). Greder's brush strokes are as stark and unsparing as his subjects and the title-page image of the magnifying glass needed to find Australia on the globe sets the tone of the book. Are the occupants of the 'ZOO' looking in or out?

Margaret Robson Kett

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