Yacoub lives in his truck. He drives huge distances carrying many different things. English is not his first language, and he sometimes finds it difficult to talk to the other truck drivers he meets along the way but luckily Yacoub has his little cat named Tinka. Tinka keeps Yacoub company on long journeys and under the stars at night. But then one day Tinka is distracted by a fluttering butterfly, and he accidentally leaves Yacoub behind. Luckily Tinka is rescued by a kind young woman named Mari. Tinka is happy living in htis new place and he enjoys her bakery and the fresh fish she feeds him but he is also worried about his friend. Will Tinka and Yacoub ever be reunited?
Here is the web site for Deborah Frenkel. I previously talked about this book:
Here is
an interview with Justkidslit where Deborah Frenkel talks about The Truck Cat.
Here is the web site for Danny Snell.
Blurb from the teachers notes (via Pegi Williams): Tinka is a truck cat, travelling the open roads of Australia with Yacoub in his truck. Yacoub doesn’t know many other people, but he and Tinka always have each other. Until one day, Tinka gets distracted chasing a white butterfly and ends up on a busy main road, with cars and trucks separating him from Yacoub. Luckily, Tinka is saved by a kind-hearted baker, Mari, who takes him into her home and her life and feeds him. But Tinka always worries about Yacoub, out there in the silence. Yacoub worries about Tinka too, missing the companionship of his friend … until one day, a smell draws him to the window of a bakery, where a familiar face waits for him.
By chance I borrowed The Truck Cat from the library this week and then today I saw it was announced as the 2025 National Simultaneous Storytime book which is on May 22nd, 2025 at 12:00pm AEST
About National Simultaneous Storytime: by facilitating NSS we aim to:
- promote the value of reading and literacy,
- promote the value and fun of books,
- promote an Australian writer and publisher,
- celebrate and promote storytime activities in public libraries, school libraries, classrooms and communities around the country,
- and provide opportunities to involve parents, caregivers, the media, and others to participate in and enjoy the occasion.
What do we look for in the National Simultaneous Storytime book?
Each year interested publishers send in possible titles. From a practical perspective, the publisher has to be able and willing to provide copyright release for use of the illustrations, book projection, translation into other languages and performance. The publisher also needs to commit to a special print run of several thousand copies. This narrows down the options. The criteria for choosing from the remaining books include:
- a positive storyline
- appeal to a modern and diverse audience
- suitability for read-aloud (language and length)
- how well the book lends itself to craft and other activities
I was very interested to read the criteria because I had (wrongly) assumed that since (in the past) Scholastic Australia were sponsors of this event the book had to be a Scholastic Australia publication. I am pleased to see I was wrong. The book this year comes from Bright Light which an imprint of Hardie Grant Children's Publishing.
Things to talk about and discuss after reading The Truck Cat:
How do you know the setting for this story is in Australia?
Do you think Yacoub has always been a truck driver? What does it mean 'to make a living'?
How do you know Yacoub has not always lived in Australia?
Why is Yacoub thinking about 'the old country'? What does this phrase mean?
Think about the sentence "Until cool hands lifted him from the road, held him gently, and carried him to a car." How does the meaning of this change if you alter the words 'cool' and 'gently'. What emotions do you feel when Mari rescues Tinka.
Tinka cannot tell Mari that he is worried about Yacoub but what might he say if he could talk?
When do we get the first hint that there might be a cultural connection between Mari and Yacoub?
How does Deborah Frenkel give her story a perfect sense of completion?
The final pages show changes to the lives of Mari and Yacoub - what has happened? Talk about the way Danny Snell has extended the text well beyond the words of the story. How has 'home' now changed for Yacoub?
Discuss the vocab from the book - interloper, mewing, lunged, daintiest, depots, tri-axle, rafters
Research Polish cakes and biscuits. Check if your family have favourite recipes from other cultures.
Yacoub calls his grandmother Nena. What do you call your grandparents?
Book design - note the changes to the end papers; the consistent colour palette used in the water colour illustrations; the use of framing as a way to sequence the plot.
How does Danny Snell show movement of Tinka and also of the traffic in his illustrations?
A similar thing happens on the page where the truck is carrying eggs - how do we know the truck is moving slowly so the eggs don't get scrambled?
Narrative devices - repeated structures - some cats are house cats, some are apartment cats, some cats live on farms, some live this the city. AND at the end sometimes he's a bakery cat, sometimes a sofa cat; sometimes he's a picnic cat and sometimes a train cat.
What device is Deborah Frenkel using with these phrases - brick motels with beetles in the bathtub; rest-stop huts with rats in the rafters; depots dancing with dragonflies; lorikeets landed in the lemon tree; pigeons pecked in the petunias.
You could make a library display of past NSS titles and even have a mini readathon in your classroom exploring all of these terrific Australian Picture Books.
If you can't read all of these try to find Arthur by Amanda Graham; Edward the Emu by Sheena Knowles; The Wrong book by Nick Bland; Too many elephants in this house by Ursula Dubosarsky; and Mrs Wilkinson's Chooks by Leona Peguero.
