Cobweb by Michael Morpurgo illustrated by Michael Foreman

Bethan lives with her father in Wales. He is not unkind but since the loss of his wife he has become a distant figure. When their farm dog has puppies Bethan is desperate to keep and love the smallest of the litter. At first it seems her father will sell this pup but somehow she convinces him to let little Cobweb join their family. The small corgi proves himself a hard worker with the sheep and he is totally devoted to Bethan. Then just like in all the bad fairytales the wicked step mother arrives and Cobweb is gone. She has sold him and she tells Cobweb the new master will be a cruel one. Luckily this is not true. Becoming a drover's dog is a whole new and rewarding adventure even though the journey to London is long and at times quite dangerous. Meanwhile in Europe Napoleon has been defeated and soldiers are returning from the battlefield. Cobweb will make a new friend (the cover hints at this) and yes, he will find his way back to his beloved Bethan.

This is an engrossing story perfect for readers aged 9+. This book is especially easy to read because (thank you) the publisher has used a bigger font and lots of white space and there are terrific illustrations scattered throughout by Michael Foreman. 

A truly moving portrayal of the powerful bonds that can be formed between animals and humans, and of courage, the ghastliness of war and resulting loss of human life. Red Reading Hub

Publisher blurb: 

"They call me Cobweb. I’ll tell you why later. I may be a dog, but I know and understand a lot more than people think I do.”

Britain. 1815. After years of loss and sacrifice, the end of the war with Napoleon is approaching. Cobweb knows nothing of the war – he loves being a young puppy and playing with his owner, Bethan, exploring the countryside and chasing rabbits. But when he is taken away from Bethan and sold, Cobweb must learn to become a Drover’s Dog – herding sheep and cattle for hundreds of miles on the long, treacherous journey to London. And after the Napoleonic wars finally come to an end with the Battle of Waterloo, Cobweb meets an unexpected stranger with an incredible tale to tell on his journey home …

Michael Morpurgo has written over 150 books and won many prizes, including the Smarties Prize and the Whitbread Award. In 2005 he won the Blue Peter Book Award for his novel Private Peaceful, which was also adapted into an acclaimed stage play. Michael was Children’s Laureate in the UK from 2003 to 2005.  He was knighted in 2018 for services to literature and charity.  His books include the classics War Boy and War Game, winners of the Kate Greenaway Award and Smarties Book Prize respectively.

Companion books:

The Dog with seven names

I am Rebel

Clancy of the Overflow by Banjo Paterson illustrated by Andrew Mclean

Clancy of the Overflow is a very famous Australian poem and this new edition illustrated by the wonderful Andrew McLean will give you (here in Australia) the perfect book to share with grades 4-6. This book should be added to every school library. 

You are sure to notice and appreciate the wonderful book design. The front cover stretches across to the back and you can see Clancy himself with his Blue Heeler* dog rounding up a mob of cattle. The land is dry and you can almost hear the grasses crunching under the feet of the lumbering beasts. There is a low mountain range on the horizon and the colour blue suggests this is near the end of the day. Notice how the cattle are running towards the reader inviting you to join in this rollicking tale. 

On the front end paper, Clancy races across the red dirt on his horse with two of his faithful dogs in front racing possibly to their camp site. On the half title page we see Clancy's kit - hat, tin mug, swag and billy. On the imprint page the two dogs face the reader resting but ready for action. By the time we reach the title page Clancy has packed up and he has his dog in his arms while he rides his horse off to another day of droving.

"He was shearing when I knew him ..." but now we learn "Clancy's gone to Queensland droving .. "

The final end paper is set at the end of the day with the drovers gathered around a camp fire as their dogs watch on. 

This wonderful poem lives again. With a salute to Andrew McLean for his stunning visual narrative ... Kids' Book Review

McLean’s artwork is beautifully woven throughout the text and provides for poignant pauses in the read aloud of the story. The endpapers are equally beautiful and depict all the shades of the sunburnt Australian landscape and end with a star-speckled bush campsite. Reading Time

The illustrations by Andrew McLean give a brilliant visual for the contrasts, with soft, sunset and bush colours for the scenes set in the bush and darker greys and browns for the city scapes. This reiterates the feelings of the narrator as he ponders Clancy’s journey and reflects on how he feels trapped in the city. The book Muse

I was surprised the Andrew McLean version of Clancy published in 2021, was not entered in our CBCA 2022 awards. This is not the first picture book version of the famous poem - here are some others:

Illustrated by Kilmeny Niland

Illustrated by Robert Ingpen

You should also look for Drover by Neridah McMullin illustrated by Sarah Anthony as a comparison text. 

Here is the full poem from 1889 by Banjo Paterson.

Clancy of the Overflow

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better

   Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,

He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,

   Just "on spec", addressed as follows: "Clancy, of The Overflow".

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,

   (And I think the same was written in a thumbnail dipped in tar)

'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:

   "Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy

   Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the western drovers go;

As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,

   For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him

   In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,

And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,

  And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy

    Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,

And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city

   Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle

   Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street,

And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,

   Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me

  As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,

With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,

   For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,

   Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,

While he faced the round eternal of the cashbook and the journal -

   But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of "The Overflow".

I am a huge fan of Andrew McLean's work - I even own a small piece of his art from the book Hazel Green by Odo Hirsch. If you share this book with a group of students you could also explore the way Andrew McLean illustrates another famous Australian poem My Country by Dorothea Mackellar and his version of On the Road to Gundagai. 

* yes people reading this in another country the Blue Heeler is that little tv star Bluey!

I'd also like to mention this poem - The Shearer's Wife by Louis Esson -  which I once recited in a theatre production:

Before the glare o’ dawn I rise

To milk the sleepy cows, an’ shake

The droving dust from tired eyes,

Look round the rabbit traps, then bake

The children’s bread.

There’s hay to stook, an’ beans to hoe,

An’ ferns to cut in the scrub below,

Women must work, when men must go

Shearing from shed to shed.

I patch an’ darn, now evening comes,

An’ tired I am with labour sore,

Tired o’ the bush, the cows, the gums,

Tired, but we must dree for long months more

What no tongue tells.

The moon is lonely in the sky,

Lonely the bush, an’ lonely I

Stare down the track no horse draws nigh,

An’ start . . . at the cattle bells.

Drover by Neridah McMullin illustrated by Sarah Anthony

Courageous, clever and daring, Drover is one of a kind. Travelling through the heart of the outback, Drover delivers a mob of cattle. Searing heat, dust and flies, hardship and danger: these are just part of the job. But there’s no place Drover would rather be.

Drover is a beautifully told, quintessentially Australian story which will give readers an insight into an interesting aspect of rural life.  The energy of the story perfectly matches the pace of the cattle, from slow moving through to still and at rest and then onto the wild night-time stampede. 

The writing in this book is nostalgic and it is also evocative of time and place – the heat of midday, the cool of the evening and the rising dust are explained using lyrical phrases such as ‘A hush descends over the bush’; ‘At full tilt, they nudge and bump into each other, dangerously teetering’; ‘They lie down near the fire, letting out a huff as they fall asleep.’   

It was wonderful that Neridah McMullin waited until the second last page to reveal the gender of Drover although readers could discover this from the back cover blurb. I wish Walker Books Australia had not included her name and instead had written "This is the truly remarkable story of a legendary drover."

The spare text allows readers to ‘fill in the blanks’ working out who Drover is, where she is going and why. The use of droving terminology adds an authenticity to the story. Shifty, the naughty one, is also perfectly named and depicted. His eyes look so shifty. 

The book mentions Lancewood and I discovered it is a species of Acacia with long dark thorns. These trees grow in Queensland and the Northern Territory. I think this detail could perhaps have been included in the glossary but that is a very minor criticism. The glossary and biography pages are very useful additions to this book. The glossary is not in alphabetical order but then I realised it was presented in the order in which the words were used in the story and this makes it easier for younger children to navigate. 

Image source: Neridah McMullin

The illustrations in Drover instantly plunged me into the dry and dusty outback, and brought the words to life. Sarah Anthony demonstrates her artistic skills in this book especially with her use light (bright sunlight) and dark. There is so much to enjoy about these illustrations. Sarah Anthony perfectly captures the colour of the red soil in the outback. Her night time scenes add to the atmosphere of the story. I love the change from the red ochre to the dark teal blue of the night skies. Her horses are also perfect and the cattle are beautifully rendered with their stark white faces and the way she shows their temperaments so clearly on their faces. There is so much movement, too, such as in the scenes where Drover chases the marauding herd. The pages somehow feel hot in the summer sun and cool in the night air and you can hear the stillness of the night and the thunder of the hooves as the cattle stampede into the night. 

In this stunning book those pleasures are brought to life by the lyrical text and the evocative illustrations as the reader joins Drover on the trail as the herd of bullocks are moved over the vast interior of this country.  Even though each day seems to be a repeat of the routine of the one before it, the ever-changing land and skyscapes make each unique and enjoyable, even though they are bone-weary and saddle-sore The Bottom Shelf

This is a fine, heroic tale, strong on iconic images of Australian ruggedness Reading Time

You could pair this book with our famous poems:

You could also contrast the life of the Edna Jessop with the woman in this poem.

The Shearer's wife by Louis Esson

Before the glare o’ dawn I rise

To milk the sleepy cows, an’ shake

The droving dust from tired eyes,

Look round the rabbit traps, then bake

The children’s bread.

There’s hay to stook, an’ beans to hoe,

An’ ferns to cut in the scrub below,

Women must work, when men must go

Shearing from shed to shed.

 

I patch an’ darn, now evening comes,

An’ tired I am with labour sore,

Tired o’ the bush, the cows, the gums,

Tired, but we must dree for long months more

What no tongue tells.

The moon is lonely in the sky,

Lonely the bush, an’ lonely I

Stare down the track no horse draws nigh,

An’ start . . . at the cattle bells.

Read more about Edna Jessop

The Weekly Times Edna Zigenbine drove 1550 head across the country at 22

Background information from Neridah McMullin

Here is an interview with illustrator Sarah Anthony

The other day I explored a different book about droving written for a younger audience.

Christmas Always Comes

Here is another book by Neridah McMullin:

Fabish the Horse that Braved a Bushfire