Millie Mak the Maker by Alice Pung. Illus. by Sher Rill Ng

Millie Mak is a shy girl at a new school and has trouble making friends.  She lives in a flat with her hard-working parents. She has very resourceful Scottish maternal grandparents and a paternal Chinese grandmother who help her to learn the value of making something new from old, discarded objects.  She learns to renovate a doll's house, she turns tea-towels into a beautiful skirt and makes a sunhat from an old bed sheet. 

There are two stories in this book, which is the first in the new series.  The first story deals mainly with introducing Millie and her family and how she discovers she can make things. Millie must spend her holidays at the local community centre at vacation care.  She shyly joins some older girls who seem to take her under their wing and make her time there so enjoyable.  She spends hours making things with materials and then goes home with her Granny to renovate the doll’s house, making all the furniture to go inside from recycled objects.  What she does with it when she is finished will warm your heart.

The second story describes the way Millie finally makes a friend. When a new girl called Rita joins her class Millie desperately wants to make friends with her, but the Teacher’s pet Geri puts her hand up to help first and Millie must wait for her chance to befriend Rita in her own time.  When she does approach Rita, Millie teaches her to hand sew material into a hair scrunchie.  So, they join forces to make a stall to raise money at the School Fete by making hair scrunchies and headbands out of old scarves and other materials.  It turns out to be the best stall there and the girls’ friendship blossoms in the process.

At the end of both stories there are detailed instructions on how to make some of the things mentioned in each story, along with suggestions about how to explore further opportunities to be creative by doing some research and further reading. A teaching guide is available.

Themes: Dressmaking, Needlework, Family, Friendship, School stories.

Gabrielle Anderson