Australia: Country of Colour by Jess Racklyeft

"Australia is the home of vivid red dirt, big blue skies, wild green bushland and warm golden beaches. This very large island has allowed unique, colourful and incredible plants and animals to adapt and grow, many of which can't be found anywhere else in the world."

This is a quote from the opening page of Australia Country of Colour and then there is an extract from the well known poem My Country by Dorothea Mackellar. Here is the famous second verse:

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror –

The wide brown land for me!

There are lots of books, old and new, which explore Australian flora and fauna and also many books for children which explore our major geographical features and landscapes but this one is extra special for several reasons. Using colour as a way to organise all of this material is so appealing and means the book is filled with vibrant illustrations. Every double spread, two for each colour, has room for more than a dozen animals and plants so this book goes way beyond the usual A to Z format with one or two examples per letter. Curious readers are given just the right amount of information for each plant or animal including the scientific name and the white background on every page means every creature or plant just pops out at the reader. It is clear that Jess Racklyeft has done an enormous amount of research for her splendid book and I am sure all included plants and animals will be a jumping off point for many children and classrooms to explore our, as the opening words say, 'incredible' creatures and plants.

Image source: Facebook Jess Mess - Illustrations

Here are the colours and sites and one example of an animal that was new to me:

Red and Pink - Uluru - Mount Kapular Pink Slug

Brown and Orange - Purnululu National Park Western Australia - Leichhardt's grasshopper

Yellow - Mount Kosciuszko National Park - Yellow Chat

Green - Tarra-Bulga National Park - Green Catbird

Blue - The Great Barrier Reef - Dollarbird

Violet and Purple - Bruny Island - Peacock Mantis Shrimp

Black and White and Grey - Kati Thanda or Lake Eyre - Pied Monarch bird

You could use this book as a gift; for a science lesson; as art inspiration - the end papers are scrumptious; or in a geography lesson. 

Here is part of the advertisement for this book from one of our large chain stores:

• The first book to explore Australian animals, plants and landscapes through the lens of the colour wheel.
• Jess Racklyeft has methodically collated some of Australia's best-known, as well as little-known, animals, plants, insects and places and presents them in pleasing colour categories, celebrating the veritable rainbow of colour that is Australia's natural world.
• An enjoyable and accessible way for children to learn more about the plants and animals of Australia.

This book is divine! Surprises come with every page and Jess Racklyeft's artwork as always, is stunning.  Kids' Book Review

Every school library should purchase this book. I am certain this book will be a 2024 Children's Book Council of Australia CBCA Notable title and also a short listed book in the Eve Pownall category. 

Plantastic! A to Z of Australian plants by Catherine Clowes illustrated by Rachel Gyan

"Australia is an amazing place, with many unique animals and plants. ... Do you know much about Australian native plants? Do you know that there are some Australian native plants that trap and eat insects? And others with seeds that are spread around in poo? ... If you don't know much about Australian native plants, don't worry; once you've read this book, you'll know heaps." (from the introduction to Plantastic). 

My friend Dr Robin Morrow and I are working on a virtual presentation for IBBY Australia which explores Alphbabet books. Plantastic is not really intended to be an alphabet book but it uses the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet as a way to organise the content.

In this book you can read about familiar Australian flowering plants - Acacia, Banksia, Christmas Bush, Gum Tree, Kangaroo Paw, and Tree Fern.  And others that are less familiar (to me) -  Rice Flower, Noon Flower, Yam Daisy, and Ziera.  

It is clear an enormous amount of research has gone into creating the illustrations for Plantastic. You can see inside this book here. 

This book contains accurate botanical and colourful illustrations which delight the reader. The illustrations are consistently positioned on each page with one larger size illustration on the left side and smaller details on the opposite pate to highlight specific traits of each plant such as flowers or fruits. 

The half title page and title page invite the reader to explore the plants contained in this A to Z book. The final end paper gives young readers an excellent visual representation of the scientific names for the parts of plants. Special mention needs to be made of leaves of each plant. These are done both artistically but also with scientific accuracy. The addition of a bee on front and back the covers, on the first pages and again on second last spread gives a sense of completion to the book and also adds a touch of whimsy. The bees work like bookends to the text. 

Catherine Clowes is a botantist and a teacher which means the text in this book is both scientific and easy to read. Here is the web site for the illustrator Rachel Gyan. 

After reading this book with a young child it might be fun to spend time identifying all of the plants on the front cover. And when you go on a bush walk you could snap some photos and then come home and see if the plants in your area are included in Plantastic. 

Plantastic contains extensive back matter - a distribution map, and a detailed glossary. I especially love the botanical illustrations and the activity which is suggested on each page:

Hibiscus "See if you can spot some pollen in a Hibiscus flower. If you touch it you might notice a few pollen grains fall off onto your finger. You could even try transferring some of this pollen from your finger to the pistil of another flower, just like a pollinator!"

Many years ago I had this little book about our Sydney bush in my school library. It could be a good one to compare with Plantastic:

Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs 100th Anniversary

Corymbia calophylla Creative Commons image

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a lecture at the Art Gallery of NSW where Dr Robin Morrow talked about May Gibbs and her very famous Australian book which turns 100 this year.   Here is part of a report I have written for our IBBY Australia Newsletter.  Robin also talked about The Magic Pudding but I will focus on Snugglepot and Cuddlepie in this post.

Gumnut babies and Puddin’ thieves: Bush adventure stories for children

Dr Robin Morrow AM

Art Gallery of NSW Lecture series

1918: The world in transition

Repercussions and legacies a century on:

The year 1918 marked the end of WWI. It was this year Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs (1877 – 1969) and The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay (1879-1969) were published. In her lecture in April 2018, Robin examined similarities and differences between these books and their attitudes to the bush; she looked at them as products of their time; and also discussed ways they are like and unlike the books published for children today.

Robin opened her lecture with a quote from UK critic Peter Hollindale “A large part of any book is written not by its author but by the world its author lives in.” 

Robin highlighted some of the influences on UK born May Gibbs. Her parents attended art school in London, she lived in Western Australian and her father took her into the bush for sketching lessons. In WA May saw very large gumnuts possibly Marri Corymbia calophylla.  Professor Peter Bernhardt (St Louis University Prof of Botany) was later to praise her observation in the details of plants and flowers especially her famous banksia men. She returned to London and contributed cartoons to The Common Cause, a suffragette magazine and she also published a children’s book About Us (1912).

Picture source May Gibbs web site

A breakthrough moment came when Gibbs designed a gumleaf bookmark with the peeping face of a ‘bush sprite’. A similar image appeared in 1914 on the cover of Lone Hand, a monthly magazine fighting for an independent Australian culture, and then came postcards which were sent to Australian soldiers serving in the trenches. In 2009 Ursula Dobosarsky was inspired by a May Gibbs postcard to write her book Tibby’s Leaf. It seems a natural progression to her next projects writing Snugglepot and Cuddlepie: Their Adventures wonderful (1918), Little Ragged Blossom (1920) and Little Obelia (1921).

In 1913 May Gibbs had made the wise decision to copyright her gumnuts. She went on to produce her comic Bib and Bub (producing over 2000 strips), books, fabric badges, hankies, calendars and bookmarks. When she died in 1969 May Gibbs left the copyright of all her works to the NSW Society for Crippled Children (now Northcott) and the Spastic Centre of NSW (now Cerebral Palsy Alliance), which still benefit from royalties on sales of her books and products.. Transport NSW has named a new harbour ferry in her honour; and in Sydney the Vivid light show will also feature her art.  (Report of the lecture by Dr Robin Morrow)

Image Source State Library of NSW

If you live in Sydney you can visit May Gibbs home Nutcote where you will learn more about her life and work. I have discovered that later this year Tania McCartney will publish a book entitled Mami : A celebration of May's life for modern children. I was interested to discover Noela Young also worked on illustrations for books about Snugglepot and Cuddlepie as a part of a Young Australia book series from the 1970s and 1980s. Here is one of the illustrations from my childhood copy of The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie:

Image source ABC Radio National Hindsight November, 2012