Hop up! Wriggle over! by Elizabeth Honey
Allen & Unwin, 2015. ISBN 9781743319987
(Age: Early childhood) Recommended. Australian Animals, Bed time,
Daily activities. Nine bouncing baby Australian animals roll across
each of the pages in this enchanting look at the activities a family
undertakes during a day. From getting up with parents, kangaroo and
koala tugged awake by their hungry offspring, to bed time where all
sleep the sleep of the exhausted after a fun packed day children
will scream with delight recognising the things they do with their
own families.
Each double page shows a different activity that a family would do
during an ordinary day. Breakfast after waking will delight the
readers with the words, 'crunch, crunch, gobble gobble, lick lick,
more' over the illustrations showing the family enjoying eating in
their own special way. Then they get on their transporters to find
their way to the park and have a picnic, first having fun on the
play equipment. After the picnic, play again occurs, then the
kangaroo calls the family together to go home. Picking salad
vegetables for tea causes mayhem, but tea is even more messy, with
'chomp, chomp, munch, munch, slurp, slurp, errp' written over the
illustrations. Bath time then snuggling down to bed completes this
representation of family life.
Read aloud, the playful words will encourage children to recognise
and join in, marveling at the new words they can say. Looking
closely at the illustrations too will encourage their participation
in the story and they will delight in the touches of humour along
the way. I loved the warmth displayed by everyone, and the small
touches, like the echidna being picked up by the kangaroo, or the
bigger animals helping the smaller ones, all lend themselves to
discussions about families and getting along as well as routines and
some less common Australian animals.
The soft watercolour drawings are impressive in in their simplicity,
giving an impression of each animal with panache and will make this
book even more appealing as the readers endeavour to find the nine
animals on each page
Fran Knight