Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Good picture books stimulate a child’s imagination. Nick Bland and Stephen Michael King celebrate creativity in The Magnificent Tree (Scholastic, $24.99 hb, 32 pp, 9781742832951). Bonny and Pops enjoy sharing ideas and making things together. Bonny’s inventions are ‘simple, clever and properly made’, while Pops’s creations are ‘big, brave and brilliant with bits sticking out’. Determined to attract the attention of the birds flying overhead, each comes up with a different but equally satisfying solution. King’s bulbous-nosed cartoon characters, minimalist backgrounds, and organic machinery interact with Bland’s thoughtful text to present a gently reassuring tale about intergenerational friendship and creative problem-solving.

 


Continue reading for only $10 per month.
Subscribe and gain full access to Australian Book Review.

Already a subscriber? .
If you need assistance, feel free to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..




From the New Issue

Prove It: Ready reckoner for post-truth age by Elizabeth Finkel

by Abi Stephenson

Our Story: A long multicultural past edited by Zhou Xiaoping

by Lynette Russell

You May Also Like

Books of the Year 2013

by Robert Adamson et al.

The Lace Maker's Daughter by Gary Crew & The Never Boys by Scott Monk

by Kevin Steinberger

Victory City: Salman Rushdie asserts literature’s freedoms by Salman Rushdie

by Geordie Williamson

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.

Submit comment