"Everyone is sweating, and smiling, and skip stepping toward ... OUR POOL."
"First stop is the locker room, where clothes come off lickety-split and swim suits go on luckety-spitter."
The pool is like "An ice-cold bowl of City People soup."
"You can feel TALL in the shallow end. And OH-SO-SHORT in the deep end."
This is a joyous, noisy, fun book with the most vibrant illustrations in bright Fluro colours. And the way the text is presented in capital letters it just begs to be read aloud.
While I was in Melbourne this week I took the opportunity to spend a couple of hours in the narrm ngarrgu Library which opened just one year ago. One of the books I read was Our Pool and it 'blew me away'. Click the LOOK button the publisher site to see inside this book. You can see all the pages in this video but do try to find the book to read to your group - that would be way better than just showing this video.
Publisher blurb: On a hot day, people come from all over the city to spend the day at the pool in this joyful picture book that’s a love song to summer, the city, community, and staying cool! Today is a pool day in the city! The sun is shining, so what are you waiting for? Friends and family. Kids and grandparents. Big bodies and small bodies. Everybody is welcome at our pool! Get ready for swimming and splashing, zigzagging and dunking, and racing and laughing.
Lucy Ruth Cummins is an author, illustrator, and art director of children’s books. She was happily paired with Jean Reidy for both Truman, which was named a New York Times Best Children’s Book of 2019, and Sylvie. She is also the author-illustrator of Stumpkin, Vampenguin, Dalmartian: A Mars Rover’s Story, Our Pool, and A Hungry Lion, or A Dwindling Assortment of Animals. Lucy has swum in creeks, streams, gorges, rivers, swimming holes, pools (above- and in-ground), lakes (both Great and Finger), decorative fountains, and oceans. Her very favorite place to swim, however, is at her community pool in Brooklyn with her sons and her neighbors.
"His head was filled with questions. Were his footsteps like earthquakes for tiny bugs in the grass. Why was an apple called an apple and cake called cake? What if everyone slept during the day and stayed awake at night?"
One day he sees a white balloon floating in the sky. How long will it float? Will it float forever? Where will it come down? What if the wind blows it higher? Where does the sky end? His mother uses the word forever and so Leo's fascination with space, the universe, aliens, and other worlds begins.
"The whole sky - all that endless space - was suddenly inside him, filling his chest until he thought he might burst. It was the most exciting thing he had ever heard."
Other kids don't exactly reject Leo, but he just doesn't fit in at school. Games are confusing, he takes a long while to answer questions, and all that noise from crowds of kids are just too much for young Leo. Then one day Ralph arrives. Actually, he turns up when Leo sees another white balloon in the tree outside his room. Ralph has come from another planet. Ralph is the perfect friend. Now Leo can cope with life, and he no longer needs to worry that he is disappointing his mum and dad. But Ralph does tell Leo he will stay for "as long as you need me." Does this mean one day Ralph will need to leave?
Allison Tait was also deeply affected by this book - she says it contains a stunning "depiction of loneliness and not fitting in and trying to follow the instructions of well-meaning parents and the sheer overwhelm of trying to make a friend when you're not sure how.""It's a wonderful ode to the power of the imagination."Your Kids Next Read podcast from [10.36- 14.49].
I went to the post office on Friday and there were three parcels waiting for collection. One was this book sent by the publisher University of Queensland Press. I can hardly describe the wonderful experience of reading this book this morning. Peter Carnavas has done it again! There is just the right amount of tension in this story to keep you turning the page and just the right depth of emotion. I cared so much about young Leo - I almost held my breath through the first fifty pages. Things are so hard for young Leo. I also needed those hugs that Peter Carnavas includes in the story from mum, dad, his little sister Peg and especially from Ralph.
I know it is very early in the year, but I am certain this book will be a CBCA (Children's Book of Australia) Younger Readers notable title and surely it will also make the short list. Leo and Ralph will be published on 1st March, 2024.
There are so many FABULOUS things about this book - the writing, the character of Leo, his journey through this early part of his life and the beautifully expressive writing of Peter Carnavas. Here are a few phrases which I loved reading:
"Leo stood in the playground in the shade of his big bucket hat. He looked like a tiny beach umbrella."
"Inside his belly, a thick lump of worry washed away like a fistful of sand in the ocean."
'Dundle was orange-brown. And oven-hot. As Leo stood with his family on the footpath of the main street, he felt like a blob of dough crisping into a biscuit."
I also love the wonderful teachers in this story. Every teacher is kind to Leo and accepting of Ralph culminating with Ms Pengari his Grade Four teacher who wears crazy costumes every day (rather like Ms Frizzle from The Magic School bus series). Her clothes match the class topic. Below are a few descriptions. I know Peter Carnavas is a teacher - I wonder if he might be just like Ms Pengari or perhaps he worked with a colleague like her. I do hope she is a real person. So often I read books about 'out of step kids' like Leo and their teachers are totally demonized. I just wanted to meet and hug every one of Leo's teachers and thank them for their kindness.
Here are some descriptions of Ms Pengari:
"A woman stepped out, wearing a flowery Hawaiian shirt, fluoro yellow boardshorts and a pair of slippers. She had rainbow zinc stiped across her face and she wore a big floppy hat and sunglasses."
"She wore a back witch's hat and carried a plastic wand, ready for the next lesson about the magic of measurement."
"She wore and eyepatch and a pirate hat and waved a plastic sword. 'Yarrrr! What's taking ye so long? we're about to set sail to the land of fractions."
"She wore a pair of pilot's goggles strapped to her head - they were supposed to be flying to the twin islands of Area and Perimeter ..."
I am sure you know the expression show don't tell - there are two utterly wonderful examples of this in Leo and Ralph - one has to do with Leo's friend Gus and the other is something his mother says close to the end of the book - a precious moment of connection that is sure to make you smile.
Leo and Ralph will arrive in schools over the coming weeks. It is a title that has been included in several standing order selections.
If you read this book with an older reader (say 10+) try to find The Watertower by Gary Crew - I had the illustrations in this book in my mind when Leo saw the strange water tower in his new town of Dundle.
I do really enjoy books about imaginary friends. My all-time favourite is O'Diddy but it is a very old book and long long out of print sadly.
Here are the two other junior novels by Peter Carnavas - every Primary school library in Australia (and beyond) should also add these to their library collection.
