Our Beautiful World by Sarah Speedie illustrated by Margeaux Davis

Please grab an atlas or find a simple world map online to share alongside this book. You will begin in Australia then travel on to Chile, China, England, Italy, Canada, Japan, Fiji, Sri Lanka, Morocco, and South Africa. Each location is matched with a landscape and a colour. Purple grapes in Chile, white snow in Canada, and yellow sunflowers (see the cover) in Italy for example. 

"Yellow, bold sunflowers and in neat rows. The Italian summer puts on a bright show."

Each landscape is a double page spread but the text placement varies. The children in each country change too. I especially loved the Japanese kids in their iconic school uniforms. 

Our Beautiful World celebrates a rainbow of colours and these same colours are used across the front and back end papers. 

I really like the cover of Our Beautiful World and, this might sound strange, but when I first saw this book in a shop in April 2025, I thought it looked like it came from a Japanese illustrator - I had no idea (at that time) that this was an Australian title. 

I love books about concepts like colours, days of the week, numbers and the alphabet. Our Beautiful World uses simple colours and landscapes to explore the world.  It reminded me of this truly exceptional book:

Our Beautiful World is a 2026 CBCA Early Childhood Notable title. 

Margeaux Davis is the illustrator of a book I really loved - What Stars are for. Here is her blog.

I was sent one of Sarah Speedie's early titles when I was a previous CBCA judge. I am going to honest and say it did not really appeal to me. I gifted it to a friend for her library and she told me her students really enjoyed it so that's great!

Here are the previous books by Sarah Speedie:

Here is my blog post about The Great Dawn Choir

Our World full of Wonder by Jevita Nilson illustrated by Jess Racklyeft

This book is published by the CSIRO here in Australia. I did not read the blurb and I didn't focus on the cover when I first 'dived in'.  In my mind the places in this book were in Australia so imagine my surprise when I discovered I had just been on a journey around the world and had seen places that were totally new to me and others that should have been familiar such as one from Australia - The Great Barrier Reef and Iguzau Falls in South America.

"There is a place where the night sky is a ballet of light, where ghostly greens swirl above snow-capped mountains, and reflections dazzle the darkness."

Aurora Borealis

"There is a place where the rocks are streaked with colour, where ancient mountains rise from the land, and time has revealed a hidden rainbow palette."

Rainbow Mountain China (Zhangye National Geopark)

"There is a place where a mysterious cave holds magical wonders, where explorers climbed over monstrous crystals glistening in the depths of Earth."

Cave of the Crystals Mexico (Sierra de Naica in Chihuahua)

Here are all the places you can visit in this book - it is sure to inspire young (and old) travellers:

- Aurora borealis, North Pole
- The Great Barrier Reef, Australia
- The Rainbow Mountains, China
- Reynisfjara Beach (black sand beach), Iceland
- Lake Hillier, Australia
- Sequoia National Park, United States of America
- Catatumbo lightning, Venezuela
- The Cave of the Crystals, Mexico
- Valley of Flowers National Park, India
- Iguazu Falls, Argentina and Brazil
- Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park, Madagascar
- Vaadhoo Island (Sea of Stars), Maldives

Here is a list with examples of the exquisite vocabulary used in this book: ballet of light; multicoloured maze; rainbow palette; fairy-floss water; streaks of silver pierce the clouds; the torrent's roar; eerie shadows; and illuminating the moonless night.

Here is the blurb from the back cover: Explore fascinating phenomena and places around the world in this vibrant picture book. Our world is full of amazing natural wonders. From sparkling seas and towering trees, to valleys, lakes and waterfalls, there are extraordinary places that seem too magical to be true but can be found right here on planet Earth. There are ghostly green lights of the aurora borealis near the North Pole, and exquisite rainbow mountains in China. There is a lake in Australia so pink it looks like fairy floss, and giant crystal caves hidden below Mexico. These are just some of the incredible places you will discover in Our World Full of Wonder. Shall we go explore?

Here are the brief Scholastic Teacher's Notes. There is a link on the publisher page to a more detailed set of teaches notes.

I wonder why oh why this book did not make the 2025 CBCA Eve Pownall (Non Fiction) notables list - this is a book that SHOULD be added to your school library. If you purchase standing orders from a supplier you may already have this book. This is a book to treasure in your library and it would also be a wonderful gift for a child aged 8+. 

You can see more books by Jess Racklyeft. Here is the second book in this series:

Earth's wildlife is nothing short of extraordinary. There are colour-changing chameleons in the forests of Madagascar and cliff-climbing goats in the European Alps. There are fluorescent fish in the depths of the Mariana Trench and wildfire-surviving echidnas in the Australian bush. Our World of Wild Wonders explores the unique animal species that inhabit our planet. Some mighty, some meek, but all wondrous in their own special way. Shall we go explore?

Rain by Anders Holmer

Bookseller blurb: This haiku collection will enchant both nature lovers and budding poets. The spare, lyrical text describes a series of short vignettes, each of them taking place in a different kind of rain, from thunderstorms to falling flower petals. The poems 'some serious, some gently humorous' depict scenes from all over the globe: a horse struggling to plow a field, a father changing a tire while his children play, and two friends making up after a fight. 

Koja Agency: Rain has just fallen, a baby tooth is loose, a beetle stands up soaked and dazed on the gravel, a mole is lurking underground while a guy on a horse gets a phone call from his grandmother. In other places the snow is melting, and the butterflies soon expected to arrive. Today’s paper is dropped from a suspension bridge and two best friends forget to be angry when a rain of flowers falls. On the overall theme of rain, this book depicts different magnificent and extraordinary places around the world. Each spread represents a new world full of subtle details and ingenious humor. Anders Holmer portrays in his unique way what is going on in that moment in that specific place. Short haiku texts accompany the grandiose spreads.

Yesterday was my third visit to one of our large chain bookstores. They have a number of sale tables filled with children's books acquired by the store before 2019. Every time I visit, I pick up another book or two. There are still heaps of treasures on these tables. My friend from Kinderbookswitheverything picked up nine splendid titles. I will talk about some of these once she puts them into her school library and I can borrow them. We BOTH picked up this book because luckily there were two copies Retail price AUS$28.50 bargain price $14.25 - and two copies have been on the shop shelf since December 2018. Maybe no one picked it up because they read this very negative review from a Swedish newspaper? 

In contrast this book gained a Kirkus Star review: While these poems do not strictly follow all the characteristics of haiku, they do evoke different moods, such as the gathering darkness of a crocodile swamp. They also break stereotypes by juxtaposing technology and rural life—a cellphone rings amid a group of bareback riders galloping across a steppe. Most of all, they invite readers to pore over each colorful, expressive illustration to discover visual clues contained in the spare verse. A unique read-aloud that blends world cultures, poetic form, and natural splendor.

On each rainy spread, life happens in haiku, with all its cultural variety and complexity: A crane observes two children resolving a quarrel, a goatherd wiggles a loose tooth while surveying the flock, a lighthouse keeper discovers an unmoored boat as puffins glide by, rangers monitor a dying forest fire while creatures scurry away, and travelers with llamas climb a steep hillside, stopping for a beetle in their path. Visual details encourage readers to learn more about the countries of origin of the peoples and animals depicted throughout. School Library Journal (quoted by Barnes and Noble)

Okay - begin with the cover and title - Rain. If you look closely you can see rain or snow falling on this young Inuit child and his or her reindeer. But then think about rain and rein. Now flip to the back cover. You will discover this is a book of haiku poems. Each page can almost stand alone. A brilliant resource for teachers looking to inspire their students to write poetry in this beautiful form. This book is a book of poetry or course, but it also fits into my new category of Poetry with Pictures - these are picture books with no narrative.

My favourite page has puffins AND a lighthouse. To be honest this is probably why I bought this book. Here is the text from that page:

Slowly the boat drifts,
drifts away from the lighthouse -
never tied it up.

I also love the image on the page with a group of people (probably in Bolivia) trekking up a mountain with their alpacas only to be stopped by a tiny beetle.

Half-awake and drenched,

a beetle stand guard in the

middle of the path.

Rain is titled Regn in Swedish. It was published in 2018 so is sadly out of print. His debut book was It Happens! (2017). 

Anders Holmer is a Swedish architect, artist and author living in Gothenburg. He has been writing and illustrating children's books since 2017. His haiku album, Rain, was shortlisted for the ALMA Prize, Sweden's most prestigious children's literature award. In 2018, Anders Holmer's work was selected for the art exhibition at the New York Society of Illustrators. 

About Farewell (also translated as Leave): After a sad conversation with her mother, a child sets off on a long journey strewn with pitfalls, an imaginary journey inspired by the elements that populate her daily life. Along the way, she collects different objects, using a butterfly net: cloud, trumpet or diamond. From these, she makes something even more precious. When she returns, she is ready to be herself again.

About Utflykt (Excursion): In Anders Holmer's new picture book, we meet two children who saunter around in enigmatic fantasy landscapes. One is snuffy and sure of what he is doing, and the other is more questioning about what is going on. They try out different identities and take on different guises. You and I and the world are mixed together. We hear the echo of an adult's voice. Existential comedy ensues when they take on a concept they don't fully understand: Excursion. A celebration of children's ability to create hopeful playfulness and make sense of the world. A metaphor of how we in our lives grope for comprehensibility but instead have to accept that not everything can be understood, and that it is also okay. Maybe we won't be any wiser, but we'll have fun along the way.

Australia from Dawn to Dusk by Brentos

Beginning at 5am in Byron Bay, New South Wales, this book takes the reader on a journey around Australia. You will discover landmarks, animals, birds and plants. Here are a couple of text quotes:

"7.45am, Sydney NSW, Gadigal Country. A swamp wallaby hops through coastal scrub for a tasty berry breakfast while rainbow lorikeets tear through flowering gum canopies above."

"1.45pm, Whitsundays, Qld Ngaro Country. Green turtles cruise ancient ocean currents as the waters of the Great Barrier Reef explode with colour, life and energy."

"8pm, Rottnest Island, WA Whadjuk Noongar Country. It's dusk on Rottnest Island and curious quokkas are waking up, ready for the night as the last rays of sunshine kiss goodbye to another perfect day in Australia."

The soft colour palette, bold illustration outlines, and eye placement giving each animal a distinct personality are all the things that combine to make a visually very appealing book. I love the way the first page is purple as the sun rises and the last page is a darker shade of purple as the sun sets. The end papers are subtle and clever. The landscapes are done so well making them easy to recognise. I have mentioned previously that I am a huge fan of lighthouses and so you will find one in this book at Byron Bay. The tiny surfer koala on each page also adds a layer of extra delight. 

Australia from Dawn to Dusk was shortlisted for the CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) New Illustrator award. I was a judge for this 2021-23 round, and we certainly were sent some amazing work. This book Australia from Dawn to Dusk should be in every Australian school library and it would be a terrific gift to send to your friends in other countries as a showcase of our landscapes, flora and fauna.

Who is Brentos? He is a Northern Beaches artist who grew up in the Sydney suburb of Terry Hills. His work can be seen all over this part of Sydney on murals and at bus stops. His work has also been used three times for the cover of a local magazine called Tawny Frogmouth. This is the cover of the September 2023 edition.

His actual name is Brent Turner. You can see more of his art here. 

Here are the notes Brentos submitted to the CBCA:

As a millennial I’ve grown up with technology and have a background in graphic design. So when Apple released the iPad, I naturally took a liking to this new creative innovation and quickly fell in love with the process of creating digital art. The iPad and broad selection of drawing apps have come a very long way and it’s now possible to emulate any style of illustration or painting in any medium – from watercolour, acrylics, oil even to aerosol, the iPad allows digital illustrators the power to push their creativity beyond traditional limitations. For my particular style of illustration, I use simple linework and flat colours in pastel tones, and I can create my illustrations as digital ‘vector’ artwork – This means the artwork can be sized up indefinitely without losing any image quality, so if we wanted to wrap something as big as Sydney Opera House, it would be possible.

My illustrations always start out as a quick composition sketch to decide where elements should be placed, where the source of light is and how the elements will interact with each other. This usually involves sketching up the initial composition in a lighter blue colour on the iPad surface in one layer, and then once happy with a sketch, I’ll begin drawing each individual element in the illustration to form the final composition. If an illustration requires a lot of detail, such as an underwater reef scene or a tropical rainforest scene, this process can take some time, but the end result is really special.

The illustrations for Australia From Dawn to Dusk were digitally hand-drawn onto an iPad surface using an app called ‘Adobe Fresco’. This medium allows me to get a very accurate illustration as close to a pen and paper sketch as possible, but it allows for incredible flexibility, allowing me to resize elements, easily erase sections I’m not happy with, re-arrange elements to create beautiful compositions and choose a brush, pen or pencil stroke that best pairs with my illustrations without having to need physical tools on hand. On top of the initial sketch, working with the iPad allows me to easily work with my colour palette and colour my illustrations with efficiency and speed, making it the perfect medium for the illustrations in Australia From Dawn to Dusk. CBCA Awards judges database.

Brentos will publish a new book in November called Australian Animals: from Beach to Bush. It will be an exploration of habitats around Australian along with the conservation status of each animal. 

Companion books to read with Australia from Dawn to Dusk:

Dirt by Sea

Mallee Sky

Australia: Colour of Country

Are we there yet?

Wild is the Wind by Grahame Baker-Smith

Who Has Seen the Wind?

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

Cassi is holding a tiny swift in the palm of her hand. We see the flock swirling through the sky above her.

"The land warms the air making it less dense and lighter. And being lighter, it rises. Cooler air above the ocean rushes in and the wind awakes! ... the tiny bird rises from Cassi's hands and, like a drop of water thrown into a river, disappears into the fleet-winged flock."

The wind continues on its way and we see it through the changes and actions it makes such as waves on the ocean, a wild cyclone, shifting sands of the desert, and monuments of carved rock. Meanwhile the little swift flies on and on eventually arriving in the courtyard of a house in China. She finds a safe place, lays her eggs, and once the new chicks grow big enough the mother bird joins her flock following the wind back to Cassi.

The language in my earlier quote shows you the lyricism of this writing.  

Here are some other phrases I love:

The swifts know the path through the "pathless sky."

"This pale revolving envelope of air ... "

"The wind is the ceaseless shaper of the Earth."

"The wind whips the waves, cresting each one - like a conjuror's trick - with wild white horses."

Wind is a natural phenomena we experience every day but how can it be explained (with illustrations) in a picture book?  Grahame Baker-Smith has achieved this in a truly special book which follows on from his previous The Rhythm of the Rain. I highly recommend this book for all school libraries. I was pleased to see this beautiful book is not very expensive. Take a look here to see some of the illustrations.

Other picture books about the wind:

Kate who tamed the Wind

Ollie and the Wind

The Sea-Breeze Hotel

Of course you will also want to link this book with Bird Migration gathering books such as Circle by Jeannie Baker; Windcatcher; and  Follow the Swallow. 

Here are some lesson ideas if you are wanting to develop a unit of work around the topic of wind.

Mallee Sky by Jodi Toering illustrated by Tannya Harricks

The words and art in this book are breathtaking. I was amazed to discover (this is not the first time I've heard of this) that Jodi and Tannya did not meet until the book launch. This book is so beautifully designed and the illustrations and text are so harmonious I thought this pair must have collaborated, possibly for many hours or days, but they did not.

Here are a few of the lyrical sentences from this book:
"When the sun goes down, the red heat of the day bleeds into the sky and sets it on fire."
"Heat shimmers and the bitumen melts. The red dirt cracks; the scrub sighs, still and thirsty."
"Ancient gums perish where they stand, grey, ghostlike; a memory of themselves."

This book is about the severe impact of drought on farms, on one family, on the landscape, on whole communities but it is also a book of hope because rain does eventually come and when it comes it is a time to rejoice.

"Dry gums gasp, drinking deeply."

The Mallee is a region in the Australian state of Victoria but really this book could be about any region in country Australia. The huge skies, the towering grain silos, those lonely tin can letter boxes and long empty dusty roads - we've all seen them.

I am certain this book will be included in the 2020 CBCA short list. Yes it is that good! Read this book slowly. Take your time with each page. Linger over the words and the vivid oil paintings. Here is a review by The Bottom Shelf.

Mallee Region image source: http://www.rdv.vic.gov.au/regional-partnerships/mallee

Image source: https://www.ruralbookshop.com.au/mallee-sky.html

Every brush stroke of this picture book is a masterpiece and every sentence a poetic homage to the sunset country and its strength. Kids Book Review

You could use Mallee Sky as part of a whole unit on drought in Australia along with Big Rain coming; Drought by Jackie French; Ella and the Ocean by Lian Tanner; Two Summers by John Heffernan; All I want for Christmas is Rain; Here comes the Rain by Clare Good; Raindance by Cathy Applegate; and Water Witcher by Jan Ormerod.

You can see I have put the label Senior Picture book for Mallee Sky. I am puzzled as to why the Premier's Reading Challenge have this as a K-2 title.  I would use this book with a senior primary group.

My friend at Kinderbookswitheverything has several posts about the topic of Drought.  January 18th, 2013; June 16 2010 World day to Combat Drought and Desertification; and this splendid post about the issue of water shortage and the joy of rain in other countries around the world.  Come on rain is one of my all time favourite books and in fact I have ordered a copy for my own home book shelves. I think it would be so powerful to compare Come on, Rain with Mallee Sky.

When you read Mallee Sky you will also want to refer to the famous Dorothea Mackellar poem. Verse four is especially relevant.

The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies
I know, but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

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!

The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze ...

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Bag in the wind by Ted Kooser illustrated by Barry Root

"One cold, windy morning early in spring, a bulldozer was pushing a big pile of garbage around a landfill when it uncovered an empty plastic bag."

Thus begins the journey of a plastic bag over the fence where it is eventually found by a girl collecting cans.  She leaves the bag with the lady at the gas station who has paid for her recycling but the bag blows away again and is found by a homeless man.

"A tall man with long hair and a beard came limping along the side of the road, using a metal crutch. The bag came rolling along the shoulder toward him and he caught it with the tip of his crutch.  He leaned down and picked it up and wadded it into his pocket"

The bag 'escapes' again and is found by several more people until finally it returns to the little girl who had been collecting cans.  She has saved her money and has come into a second hand store to buy a baseball glove and ball.  Bag in the Wind is a lyrical exploration of an important environmental topic.  Here is some background reading about the problems with plastic bags.  The setting for Bag in the Wind is American but there is an Australian campaign to reduce or eliminate the use of bags which is also worth exploring with your students.  Bag in the Wind is in our Picture book collection but it could also be placed in Non Fiction because it does have excellent pages of factual information at the back.  Here is an excellent Q&A with Ted Kooser and a poster you could use to promote this special book.

You might like to also read my review of House Held up by trees also by Ted Kooser.

The exquisitely observed narrative renders the American landscape’s dubious symbiosis—nominally natural, persistently industrial—worthy of a child’s attention: “There were lots of young trees along the ditch, their twigs covered with hard little buds that would soon open, and the bag got caught on a branch and hung there the rest of the night, flapping and slapping in the wind.”