Market Day

Carrie Gallasch (text) and Hannah Sommerville (illustrator), Market Day, Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing, January 2022, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781760504076

After winning the 2022 CBCA Book of the Year: Early Childhood for Jetty Jumping illustrator, Hannah Sommerville is back with Market Day. This collaboration with author, Carrie Gallasch is a feast for the eyes. The text follows a family as they travel to the city to attend a large open air market. The eldest daughter has a coin to spend on anything she wishes, and there are many, many choices.

The family buy produce, delicacies such as cheese and oysters and baked treats like croissants. And still the daughter has not spent her coin. As night falls and their trolley fills the family moves to have dinner with the rest of the market goers. A young musician plays and the daughters begin to dance prompting others to join them in a joyous celebration. At the end of the evening the girl knows what to do with her coin and donates it to the musician.

Looking back at Sommerville’s illustrations the reader can see that once the family enters the market the musician appears on most pages moving through the background of each picture. This little detail and many others make this a book that begs to be read and re-read. Market Day would also make an excellent bed time read as it moves the reader from the hustle and bustle of the market to the quiet sleepiness of the car ride home at the end of the day.

A warm hug of a read, Market Day truly deserves its shortlisting as a 2023 CBCA Book of the Year: Early Childhood.

Reviewed by Anne Varnes

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