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April’s town is grey and gloomy. People are too busy to stop and look around. April’s grandma was never too busy and said “The world is full of wonders!” Grandma loved flowers and even knew their secret language which gives April an idea to help happiness bloom in her town and encourage everyone to slow down.

This whimsical story is wrapped in endpapers of floating dandelion seeds perfect for making wishes. It also includes a beautiful hand painted glossary of the Korean language of flowers. Magnolias are one of my favourite flowers and they mean ‘You’re precious’. Which flower would you choose to give to a message to your friend?

Sally Han’s colourful illustrations and gentle story remind us to slow down and appreciate the beauty of nature, especially flowers. Tiny Wonders speaks to my heart because one of my joys is photographing the tiny wonders in nature I discover on my walks. I think April would love these flowers…

Thank you for the copy of this book to preview University of Queenland Press

Happy reading!

 

 

Squish Rabbit's Pet was a big hit with the Early Learning classes in our library! 

Squish Rabbit dreams of many things, but most of all Squish wants a puppy of his own to play with and cuddle. His friend Twitch tries to help him find his dream puppy.

One day Squish finds an egg and takes it home. We liked the way Squish cared for his egg by keeping it warm and dry and laughed when he dressed it as a pirate! Squish gets a big surprise when Twitch explains that a puppy won't hatch out of the egg. Squish has to make a big decision and we liked the choice he made. We had fun guessing what would hatch out of Squish's egg. We think Squish's new pet would be fun to play with, especially on the ceiling! 

We liked the squishy front cover and it's happy yellow colour. At first we thought the egg might be an Easter egg - yum! We liked the colourful endpapers that someone said looked like a 'crumpled paper rainbow' and we noticed that there was a little clue about the egg in the endpapers. We think Katherine Battersby is clever the way she draws Squish Rabbit and adds real pictures to her illustrations. We liked the autumn leaf and the feathers. 

This is Squish Rabbit's third book and we hope he has more adventures for us to have fun reading.

Happy reading! 

Teacher notes


Dawn and her friends have a plan!
They are going to eat as many leaves as they can,
weave cocoons and turn into moths so they can fly!
Easy peasy right?

Dawn the caterpillar discovers that changing from a caterpillar into a moth is not as easy as it sounds. Eating leaves all day long is the easy part. There are knots and tangles and Dawn's patience is tested as she learns to use sticky silk threads to weave her cocoon...argh!! Finally tucked into her cosy cocoon, Dawn misses her friends and waits and worries that her wings may never sprout. What if she doesn't grow them at all? Dawn reminds us to not give up on our dreams as she faces one final challenge before she can fly and chase the lights with her friends.

Aura Parker's playful water colour and ink illustrations include tiny details that invite you to take a closer look. Cocoon's vibrant endpapers are bursting with nature, but why are they different? Can you find the eggs, caterpillars, cocoons and moths that Aura has cleverly hidden in the endpapers?

Dawn is a delightful character and Aura captures her emotions with such simplicity. How do you think does Aura does this? Look at the illustrations for some clues.

Click on the picture to enlarge

One of my favourite pages is the dream cocoon that Dawn imagines with her own nectar pool and wing design studio. I wonder what you would include in a dream cocoon for Dawn? 

Explore HERE if you are interested in information that compares moths and butterflies.

If you enjoy being creative, Aura has designed a cocoon finger puppet for you to colour and make HERE

If you enjoyed reading Twig, you are going to love reading Cocoon too!

Happy reading!

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