The Bush Jumper by Jean Chapman illustrated by Ali Beck

Koala comes home from a bush sale with a bag of colourful knitting wool. She tells Mitti she will knit her a jumper. Mitti says:

"I want a jumper that looks like wattle blossom. ... Yellowy-yellow, please!"

Koala knits and knits. This is a very special gift. You can see her here sitting on a beautiful chair which is covered in flannel flower fabric!

Image source Ali Beck: https://www.alibeckillustrator.com/gallery

Koala starts the second sleeve. This is the final part of the jumper. The wool runs out.  "A scrap of wool hung from her needle like a piece of limp spaghetti." Koala has no more yellow wool. She declares:  "I'll make a striped sleeve."

"This is a bushland jumper, Mitti. Yellow for wattle blossom, green for gum leaves, pink for boronia flowers, and blue for summer skies."

Boronia image source: https://www.anbg.gov.au/gnp/gnp4/boronia-pinnata.html

Mitti is not happy. She thinks the odd sleeve in all those colours looks horrible. Her friends, on the other hand, love her jumper. Echinda tries it on but he is too prickly and the jumper now has holes all over. Emu tries on the jumper but has trouble fitting it over her neck. Wombat is next in line but his tummy is fat and the jumper is stretched and stretched. By now the jumper is hideously misshapen and Mitti feels sad. Luckily Koala knows how to solve this - she gently washes the beautiful jumper and restores it. Then uses her other balls of wool to knit gifts for Mitti's friends. A nose warmer for Echidna, a pink scarf for Emu, and an extra big green jumper for Wombat.

Yesterday I visited a charity book fair where I found lots of treasured books. I am collecting up to 90 Australian children's picture books for our IBBY Australia event in 2020.  They will be added to our lucky dip bags. Last year we did Hans Christian Andersen bags as our IBBY event celebrates International Children's Book Day which happens on 2nd April - the birthday of HCA. This time I am focusing on fabulous Australian books like this one.

I seems The Bush Jumper is perhaps the only book Ali Beck has illustrated. Take a look at her gallery - she does beautiful work.

I would pair The Bush Jumper with other books about knitting (thanks to my friend at Kinderbookswitheverything) such as Lester's dreadful Sweaters and No Roses for Harry by Gene Zion.

I have loved this quirky little book, The Bush Jumper, since it was first published in 1998. It should be on my Tuesday Treasure list.  I happy to see it was reprinted in 2011 and it is still available.  I was a little surprised to see Jean Chapman from Australia (1926-2012) identified as the Jean Chapman romance writer from UK. Our Jean Chapman was the author of some wonderful book such as the rich anthologies - Velvet Paws and whiskers; Pancakes; The Sugar Plum Christmas Book and Painted Eggs and Cockatoo Soup. All of these would be in most Australian Primary school libraries. Jean also wrote terrific short stories and picture books. On a personal note I did my first Teacher-Librarian course with her daughter Louise.