Get back in your books! by Rory H. Mather. Illus. by Shane McG

I doubt there is a child or adult who has not been involved in a Book Week celebration of some sort of another. It may have been at a school or kindergarten, local library or play group, but the theme is the same: get reading, get involved and dress up. And this is the basis of the latest book from Mather and McG, promoting Book Week, as the main character is confronted by an array of characters normally seen in books.

Arriving at school, he usually heads for the library but on this particular day he is amazed to see Wally sitting by the pot plant, and instead of the librarian a buffalo greets him, while a fox runs past. Over by the picture books a caterpillar is being greedy while three little pigs trot by. But then a bunch of wizards mix things up in a puff of smoke, and pirates inhabit the paperback stand. A smiling cat is the last straw and he rummages for a megaphone and intones loudly, ‘get back in your books’, but the laugh is on him when they take their masks off to reveal his class, all dressed in costume ready for the Book Week Parade.

A nice salute to an annual event around Australia, the underlying humour in both the text and illustrations will please young readers. The rhyming text will bring smiles of recognition as readers predict the rhyming word and say it out loud as it is read, or mull over the characters and the books they appear in, or look closely at the illustrations, recognising characters that appear. Children will love working out how they can make masks to fit a favourite character, and look through the dress up box to create a costume for the coming event.

Themes: Book Week, Parade, Book characters, Dressing up, Humour.

Fran Knight