Billy's Bucket by Kes Gray

Here is another small gem that might have slipped your notice when it was published in 2003. Billy’s Bucket by Kes Gray hits all the right buttons with me. Billy is a boy with a marvelous imagination and a boy with terrific determination.

He does not want a conventional Birthday present given by his conventional parents. He wish is far more simple. Billy wants a bucket! Mum and Dad try to persuade Billy to consider other gifts but Billy simply won’t be swayed.

Finally Mum and Dad give in and take Billy to a store with the fabulous name of

Buckets are us! 

Billy needs to look at all those rows and rows of buckets in order to find that one special bucket he knows is there.

And what a bucket it is. When Billy gets the bucket home he fills it with water and then the magic begins. Rock pools, fish, coral, sharks, clown fish, a stingray and much more can be seen inside this marvelous bucket. Of course Mum and Dad don’t bother to look and so miss all this magic.

The best twist though comes at the end, when despite Billy’s stern warning, Dad uses the bucket to wash his car. Spoiler alert -  “It took Billy’s Mum and Dad six hours, three fire engines, four cranes and a shoe horn to get the whale back into the bucket and they never borrowed Billy’s bucket again.”

This is a book you can easily revisit again and again. It will be a hit with young readers and with Mum and Dad too! Check out other books by Kes Gray such as Eat your peas and You do. They are great fun.

Here is a set of teachers notes. Zoe at Playing by the Book loves Billy's Bucket too. Here is a splendid video of the whole book.

Toothpaste and The Astonishing Madame Majolica

Here is another small book that most people probably missed when it was published over 10 years ago. It is called The Astonishing Madame Majolica by Erylis Hunter. In just 64 pages this book has all the right ingredients for young readers – humour, magic, toothpaste, a touch of fantasy and a cliff-hanger about half way through.

Our hero sees an eccentric lady at the local shopping centre with a sign that says ‘Let Madame Majolica Astonish you’. This magical lady explains she has some special toothpaste that you only need to apply once each year. In exchange for 20 cents and a fudge recipe Toby takes home the little tube, he tries it out and then he screams!

Madame Majolica has a magical bag. She places the recipe inside and just a few moments later pulls out a dish of freshly baked fudge. It is delicious!
The theme of lost teeth is always popular with Years 1-3 and I love to read books like The Tooth Ball by Philippa Pearce, Oliver Sundew Tooth fairy by Sam McBratney and by Robert Munch Andrew's loose tooth.


On the topic of toothpaste books like The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling and the sequel Chocolate Touch II along with The toothpaste Genie by Sandy Frances Duncan are worth searching for in your library. Finally there is one of the best short stories of all time Paul Jennings One Shot toothpaste which I first read in a little Puffinalia magazine in 1985.





In writing this blog I now discover the author of The Astonishing Madame Majolica is from New Zealand.

Pencil of Doom by Andy Griffiths

I will admit I am not a huge fan of Andy Griffiths http://www.andygriffiths.com.au/ – why would I be – I am completely the wrong demographic. I am not a boy in Year 4 or Year 5 but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed reading one of his newest books – Pencil of Doom.

What a great book to read if you feel like real laugh. The plot has just the right number of twists and turns for a story that could be so predictable.

The pencil of this book is totally evil. The idea is similar to the genii from the bottle who gives wishes but always gets those wishes wrong. When the children draw their wishes using this pencil they really need to take care. How these wishes are ‘interpreted’ by the pencil of doom is guaranteed to be a shock, dangerous and often a disaster.

One memorable scene is in the school library towards the end of the story. Our 5 intrepid heroes enter the library stealthily. Clive, their enemy, has the pencil and he has produced a cartoon that fills all the friends with dread. Frame one is a happy picnic scene set under a snow capped mountain, frame two the cap of the mountain breaks off, frame three all the friends are buried under the snow, and the final frame is five tombstones in a ring on the snow.

The cartoon comes true but since we are in the library it is the bookshelves, not snow that falls on the gang. Mr Shush, the librarian, must set the children free but first “I have to do it systematically. In alphabetical order. This is a library, you know, not a garage sale. It will take me a few seconds ... minutes ... hours …days … weeks … months … years.” See Chapters 58-63 for more details.

I love the name Mr Shush and of course the other characters have great names too – the teacher Mr Brainfright, Mrs Rainbow the art teacher, Mr Grunt the sports teacher and my personal favourite Mrs Bandaid the school nurse.

You will laugh out loud when you read this book so if you need a good laugh try Pencil of Doom! This is the second book in the Schooling Around series which began with Treasure Fever.

Daydream Dan by Sarah Garson

We all enjoyed a lovely visit to our school library today by Sarah Garson http://www.sarahgarson.com/. Sarah has recently come to live in Sydney moving from Oxford in UK. Her picture books are published by Andersen Press and are just delightful. Our Year 3 children particularly enjoyed Daydream Dan and Alfie’s Angels.

In the story Daydream Dan we meet a boy with a fabulous imagination although he insists he is not daydreaming. His teacher is too caught up in the daily routines of the classroom and does not notice a jungle as it grows in the classroom, the arrival of a pirate ship, Dan’s meeting with mermaids or the fact that this classroom has rapidly filled with amazing things.

This book reminded us of A nice walk in the Jungle by Nan Bodsworth where the children are on an excursion and while the teacher focuses on the tiny jungle creatures and insects all around them, a boa constrictor is slowing working his way down the line of children swallowing each one in turn.

Sarah was able to show us the process of picture book production from the design of the 32 pages, the dummy book, proof copy and finished product. We were especially impressed by the global journey that a book makes from its creation in Australia, back to the UK, on to Switzerland, back to Australia, then to the Bologna Book Fair, off to Singapore and finally it is placed in a warehouse in UK ready for distribution around the world.

Sarah’s newest book is One Two Cockatoo and it was inspired by the lovely Sulphur-crested Cockatoos that arrive in her garden. Sarah has really captured the personality of this cheeky bird and very young children will adore the little twist at the end of this one to ten counting rhyme when one more little arrival is added.

Sarah’s work appears in more than twenty books from covers, to poetry anthologies, bilingual texts to her own special stories. Today was certainly a day to remember in our school library.

The amazing adventures of Chilly Billy by Peter Mayle

“Billy’s the name”, he said. “Chilly Billy. I take care of your fridge – cleaning, defrosting, that kind of thing. And I specialise in turning the light on and off… I repaired a leak in the yoghurt carton. I tidied up the freezer compartment, which you left in a dreadful mess. I polished all the ice cubes. I put the top back on the milk bottle. I cleaned all the shelves.”

In 1984 I first started teaching and at some stage early in the year someone gave me a two page list of about 100 titles that made good read-alouds for junior primary classes. I remember sitting on a plane flying back to my home and reading the tantalizing title:

 “The amazing adventures of Chilly Billy the little man who lives in the ‘fridge".

At that time, I had two special friends working in the book trade, so I contacted them and they were able to obtain a copy of this book for me. First published in 1980 by Peter Mayle, this little book is such a gem with just 7 short chapters describing adventures that every child can relate to. In the opening chapter we meet Billy and discover his special and vital role in the ‘fridge which is turning the light on and off. In subsequent chapters Billy falls in love, makes a new friend called Norman and participates in the ‘Fridge Olympics and Frozen sports contest against his archrival The Mad Jumper!

The colloquial style along with the genuine appeal of our little hero make this book a special winner every time. I estimate I have read this book to at least 2000 kids in Grade 2 and 3. The illustrations are just perfect too!

This book is unfortunately now out of print. I long for a service where publishers could be alerted about little books like this. I wish I could shout from the hills all the titles that should be reprinted so heaps of new children can enjoy them too. I would include O’Diddy by Jocelyn Stevenson, Ratbags and Rascals by Robin Klein, The Vegetable Thieves by Inga Moore, Sloppy Kisses by Elizabeth Winthrop and One is for one by Nadia Wheatley on this list. I do have some hope. I saw another favourite book of mine War and Peas by Michael Foreman was finally reprinted last year.

Peter Mayle is so famous for A Year in Provence, but I would like to tell the world to also read Chilly Billy. If you look on the internet you will see copies for over US$700 not bad for a simple little children’s book that was probably about $2.50 when it was first published.

I also own a copy of the sequel Footprints in the butter. It is not as successful as the first book but it is great to be able to show the children how Peter Mayle continued this story. A big thank you goes to a friend who found this book in a remainder shop over 18 years ago.

If you ever find a copy of The Amazing Adventures of Chilly Billy hold onto it and do not let it go it is one of the most special books of all time.

Read more here and see some of the illustrations. You can hear chapter one here. 

The Black Book of Secrets by FE Higgins

I really enjoy the way some authors seem to be able to create perfect names for their stories. A good example is The black book of secrets by FE Higgins. The dentist we meet at the beginning of this story is called Barton Gumbroot. The unqualified doctor who pronounces every one dead from heart failure is Samuel Mouldered. The gravedigger is called Obadiah Strang and I especially like the bookseller who is called Perigoe Leafbinder. Even the town has a great name Pagus Parvus.

Surprisingly the two main character names, however, were not quite as successful for me. Ludlow Fitch is the unlikely young hero of this tale while Joe Zabbidou is his master and the ‘Keeper of secrets’.

The plot for this book seems like such a simple idea. People have terrible secrets which keep them awake at night. Joe is a pawnbroker who buys these secrets and he uses Ludlow to record them in the black book.

The really interesting part of this book, though, is the secrets themselves and the way Higgins weaves a tale of life in this small town under the tyrannical leadership of Jeremiah Ratchet.

You can see a video interview with the author at http://www.meettheauthor.com/bookbites/1358.html

Here you will also find out about her next book.

You can also read more about the story at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/feb/17/featuresreviews.guardianreview16

If you enjoy eating meat pies then I don't recommend this book. The pies are deadly made by the butcher with another great name Horatio Cleaver!

Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel

For a real adventure you might try two books by the Canadian author Kenneth Oppel – Airborn and Skybreaker. I just finished the second book in this series and was certainly not disappointed. The setting for these fast paced stories is an airship powered by hydrium, an amazing alternate fuel. The setting might be the turn of the century or it might be the future all that I know for certain is that the world is certainly a different place. These airships feel like the luxury of travel on the Titanic.

In this second book we again meet our hero Matt Cruse and his great friend Miss Kate de Vries. This time they are on a mission to find the Hyperion, an airship which was owned by an eccentric millionaire but which is now a ghost ship floating at very high altitudes. While the ship might contain huge wealth for our intrepid explorers it will almost certainly also contain very great dangers which only the bravest of heroes will survive.

Just like the depths of the ocean, high altitudes are home to some weird and amazing creatures including some that use electric shocks to stun and kill their victims. The travellers have named these creatures aerozoans. Matt accidently sets one free into the main cabin of the hyperion :

“To my relief it seemed to lose interest in me and sailed away. Then it stopped. It turned. It jetted straight for the glass, stretching irself as long and skinny as a spear. I cursed under my breath and started running. The aerozoan gave one last great contraction of its apron and tentacles, compressed itself into a tight bundle, and soared clean through the hole, over my head and into the engineerium.”
The next book to be published in 2009 is called Starclimber. You can read more about this author and all his books at http://www.kennethoppel.ca/. Set aside some time because this is an amazing web site and you will be in for a wild ride just like the one in his novels. I have kept an eye out for this author (he looks so young on his web site) ever since I read his first book Colin’s fantastic video adventure many years ago. I have now discovered he was only 18 when he wrote this terrific little story. The Silverwing trilogy is also an interesting set of books with very dark political themes, quite different to the Airship books.

One more thing - there is a little romance in these books with the promise of more to come in the next book.