Where to Hide a Star by Oliver Jeffers

"Once there was a boy ... and together with his two friends ... he would often play hide-and-seek."

Boy does the counting because, well he is the only one of the trio who can actually count! It is clear early on that star is not very good at hiding and penguin always hides in the same place but nevertheless the three friends enjoy the routines of their game. Until ...  

Somehow (your young reading companion will see how this happened but the boy doesn't know) star is left behind and because he has been placed in a small rowing boat it is clear he will be more than just lost he will be washed far away. The scene where we see this happening is filled with drama and terror. 

Penguin and boy search high and low but star is nowhere to be found. The boy knows they need extra help, so he calls on his friend the Martian. Will they be able to find star? Where has he gone? Oh, and there is another problem - the girl who finds him would like to keep him as her friend too? How can this dilemma be resolved so everyone is happy? The second last illustration in this book is one to linger over. 

Now go back and find the first book where we meet star:

Reading Where to Hide a Star you are, I'm sure, going to think of the other book by Oliver Jeffers - Lost and Found which is where we meet Penguin.

Then I made this discovery. I have not read or seen the last two books mentioned here: HarperCollins Children’s Books published Jeffers’ debut, How to Catch a Star, in 2004 after it was discovered in a pile of unsolicited manuscripts. It was the first in a series of bestselling books featuring the boy and the penguin, including Lost and Found (2005), The Way Back Hom (2007) and Up and Down (2010).

There is a quality of a truly special picture book that comes when you think you know exactly where a story is going (and perhaps you are right) but the journey to arrive at that all important poignant and emotionally satisfying happy ending contains a surprise or two. I think it is essential for every school library to have all of these books and what a wonderful reading experience this would be for a class of young children to read one each day! And at the end of this fifth book I am sure you will agree there is room for another story. Certainly you will want to talk about what might happen next? Surely the boy will meet his new friend - a young Inuit girl - again. 

"I could barely remember how to paint the boy and the penguin, but once my watercolours were dusted off for first time since the last time these characters were painted, the colour combinations, techniques and brushstrokes all came back to me like a forgotten part of myself. It felt like a reunion with long lost family. Then to be able to continue the momentum of this old familiar world into new territory felt exciting enough to remind me of the time I made How to Catch A Star 20 years ago, and hopefully a whole new generation of kids will share that excitement", said Jeffers. 

Like Jeffers’ other boy-related tales, this one is distinguished by its tone; the author/illustrator excels at cultivating a rose-hued melancholy sweetness that will linger long after the book is closed. The palette of the textured watercolors changes according to location and emotion, with the firmament above appearing in a striking final black-and-white culmination. A gratifying story of loving and letting go. Kirkus

You can hear the author Oliver Jeffers (who was born in Australian but lives in Ireland) reading a tiny sample of his book here. 

You could explore a mini theme of books about the game of hide and seek. This is a fabulous choice because it is such a universal game and also it is a game that very tiny children play in the simplest way by hiding their eyes or seeing an adult carer hide their eyes to play peek-a-boo!

The Best Hiding Place

Molly, Olive and Dexter

The Snow Lion

Fish and Sun

Missuk's Snow Geese by Anne Renaud illustrated by Geneviève Côté

Litte Missuk lives in the far north of Canada. Her father carves soap stone pieces into animals and Missuk longs to learn how to do this but for now she will have to wait because her father needs to set off hunting for caribou. Missuk fills in her day sewing new mittens with her mother and then trying a little carving project but she is so restless. Outside the air is warm but the land is covered in snow. The sky is vast and lying on her back in the snow she sees a flock of migrating snow geese. Missuk makes up a game of lying in the snow and leaving bird-shaped imprints along the trail taken by her father that morning.

Late in the day and into the evening her father does not return. Missuk goes to bed and while she does sleep her dreams become nightmares as her imagination wonders if her father has had an accident or if the husky dogs are trapped in broken ice. Eventually her father does return. He is cold and very tired but once he recovers he explains how he did become lost in a snow storm but close to home he found something special.

"I would have been lost had I not come upon a trail of goose shapes stamped into the snow. Those birds led me across the tundra and up to a hilltop from where I saw our igloo. This is how I found my way home."

Missuk's Snow Goose was published in 2008 so sadly it is out of print but I was pleased to see it was featured in our NSW School magazine in 2019. I picked up this book because I like the illustrations by Geneviève Côté. Here is an interview with Seven impossible Things.

Côté’s watercolor-wash and charcoal pictures warmly illuminate the family’s emotional connection against a harshly beautiful landscape that teems with wildlife. Kirkus

I previously talked about Ella May and the Wishing Stone by Cary Fagan illustrated by Genevieve Cote.

This week IBBY Canada released a wonderful list of Indigenous Picture Books. We are so lucky here in Australia that we speak English and so we can enjoy books from Canada.

Take a look at the three lists - 2018, 2021 and 2023. If you are in Australia you might like to hunt out books illustrated by Julie Flett, Qin Leng, and Soyeon Kim.

When I worked in Canada in 1994 one of my projects was to collect one picture book from each province. I almost completed this task. Here are some of the books I bought home. I have given a few away over the years so there are a few titles I have forgotten (sadly):

If You're Not from the Prairie by David Bouchard illustrated by Henry Ripplinger

Mary of Mile 18 by Ann Blades

Belle's Journey by Marilyn Reynolds illustrated by Stephen McCallum

Last Leaf First Snowflake to fall by Leo Yerza

Oh, Canada by Ted Harrison

Baseball bats for Christmas by Michael Kusugak illustrated by Vladyana Krykorka

A horse called Farmer by Peter Cumming illustrated by P. John Burden

The Mummers Song by Bud Davidge illustrated by Ian Wallace

A Prairie Alphabet by Jo Bannatyne-Cugnet illustrated by Yvette Moore Montréal