Tags
Related Posts
Share This
JACKIE LOVES RILEY
You may recall back in September, we introduced the latest Riley adventure by fantabulous local writer, Tania McCartney.
Well, it seems that we’re not the only ones who love Riley and the Grumpy Wombat: A journey around Melbourne.
No sirree, Riley’s latest fan is none other than much-adored Australian author, Jackie French. She of the carrot-munching wombats and hairdressing sheep and ballet-dancing kangaroos.
Here’s what she had to say:
Just sometimes there’s a touch of brilliance in the breeze, and it’s different. Riley and the Grumpy Wombat is one of the different ones.
Like the others in the Riley series, it combines photos of iconic places with bright images of Riley – the boy who travels the world to find a dragon in Beijing, a lion in Hong Kong, a koala in Sydney and in this case, a grumpy wombat in Melbourne.
They’re books for the travelling generation, who’ll get to see those places with their family or school excursion or at least on TV, and will recognise the images, or be able to find them later.
The books are fun, delightfully silly, but most of all, the conjunction of real places with imagined characters works with the intended audience, who can easily put themselves in Riley’s place.
Eighty per cent of the success of a picture book depends on a great concept, and this concept is superb. Riley and the Grumpy Wombat is also, I think, the most polished and inventive of the Riley books so far.
The kids I read it to loved it. So did I.
Hey, if it’s good enough for Jackie French, it’s good enough for me!
Find out more about the Riley series here and Tania here. And you can buy Riley and the Grumpy Wombat here!
Riley and the Grumpy Wombat: A journey around Melbourne was written by Tania McCartney and illustrated by Keiron Pratt. From Ford Street Publishing.
