Tag Sophie Norsa

Yellow Dress Day / What’s In My Lunchbox?

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Thanks to New Frontier Publishing for sending these two recent picture books:

Yellow Dress Day
Michelle Worthington, illustrated by Sophie Norsa

Ava has a particular penchant for dresses, dresses of all colours and she chooses which of them to wear according to the feeling she has about the day, when she greets it each morning.

The red dress is reserved for warm, sunny days; on pink dress days her garden is all abuzz with bees enjoying the flowers; purple dress days are those when rainstorms are around;

snowflakes swishing, swirling and sparkling in the sky signify the need to select her blue dress, while yellow dress days have a whistling wind that shakes the tree branches and send their leaves all a-scatter.

On one such whirly, windy day, Ava’s dress isn’t to be found in any of its usual places …

but then she recalls that the previous day had been similar. Oh dear! Now she can locate its whereabouts but she can’t put it on in the state it’s now in.

Perhaps her mum can find something of the appropriate colour for her to use instead so she can go out and enjoy the day playing with her pup.

Michelle Worthington’s story with a scattering of onomatopoeia  that young listeners will love, is great to read aloud, and equally fun illustrations by Sophie Norsa, capture the different moods of the days beautifully.

What’s In My Lunchbox?
Peter Carnavas, illustrated by Kat Chadwick

This book really made me laugh. I was expecting it merely to be a story about a picky eater but it’s SO much more than that.

The boy narrator is something of a fusspot when it comes to the contents of his lunchbox – he eschews the apple; fish is a definite no-no – I don’r blame him on that one;

ditto the egg. I’ve no idea how what emerges on day four has managed to hide itself in a container with so small a capacity, and even more so the item for day five.

I imagine day six’s lunch item would definitely discombobulate any self-respecting boy …

so what about day seven? Could something therein on that particular day perhaps cause a rethink on the narrator’s part?

WIth its repeat patterned text, every page of this story is a starting point for another story – one that a child creates in response.

Ideal for those in the early stages of becoming readers to try for themselves, or for class sharing, when anticipation will be high throughout, and with Kat Chadwick’s terrific illustrations, this is such a fun read. Make sure you sample the front inside cover too.

Brave Adventures Little Girl / Where Do Teachers Go At Night? /Where Else Do Teachers Go At Night?

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Brave Adventures Little Girl
Iresha Herath and Oscar Fa
Little Steps Publishing

There’s often a very special bond between young children and their grandparents and so it is with four-year old Anika who visits her grandmother (Achi) and grandfather (Seeya) every Sunday.

Anika doesn’t feel brave when she tries new things: ‘I always feel funny in my tummy’ she tells Seeya.

But she loves to listen to Seeya’s stories of adventures he’s had in various parts of the world.

On this occasion he uses these to talk about how when he was faced with trying new things in various parts of the world he visited, he too frequently had a funny feeling in his tummy. Nevertheless he did the things anyway – swimming in a big lake being followed by what he imagined to be a crocodile,

leaving Sri Lanka to go to university in England and visiting Russia with his university for instance.

His mention of the Olympics brings Anika back to the present as she tells Seeya about learning to hop for the ‘Kinder Olympics’. (Practising hopping caused her to trip and fall during her visit) and she feels reassured by all she’s heard especially when her grandparents agree to come and watch her participate in the Kinder Olympics.

With Oscar Fa’s unusual illustrations that have gentleness and warmth about them, this sensitively told story inspired by the author’s own Sri Lankan family has at its heart loving family relationships, adventure, fear and over-coming of same but above all, love.

Also recently out from Little Steps Publishing

Where Do Teachers Go at Night?
Where Else Do Teachers Go at Night?
Harriet Cuming and Sophie Norsa

When I taught four year olds some of them were convinced that I slept at school. Now though we have the great reveal: two zany books written by Harriet Cuming experienced teacher tell in jaunty rhyme, what happens to the staff after the pupils have all departed from school for the day.

Those teachers certainly don’t confine themselves to one location either: they snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef,

skinny dip in the Caribbean, there’s even a spot of crocodile wrestling in Kakadu.

The second book has the energetic crew off on a new round of after school adventuring . There’s ice-skating in Iceland,

mountain climbing in the Andes as well as butterfly chasing in New Guinea. This reviewer hasn’t participated in any of those activities but has visited four of the locations mentioned in the books and  ridden several elephants in India, albeit not in Mumbai.

Sophie Norsa’s watercolour and crayon illustrations show these wacky activities in such a way that children come away feeling they know something about each of the adventurers’ characters and eccentricities.

Fun and gently educational in a geographical sort of way.