Alison Reynolds (text), Mikki Butterley (illus) The Birthday Party Cake (Pickle and Bree’s Guide to Good Deeds), Five Mile Press, October 2015, 32pp., $14.95 (hbk) ISBN 9781760067236
Alison Reynolds (text), Mikki Butterley (illus) The Decorating Disaster (Pickle and Bree’s Guide to Good Deeds), Five Mile Press, October 2015, 32pp., $14.95 (hbk) ISBN 9781760067229
These are the first two books in Pickle and Bree’s Guide to Good Deeds series from The File Mile Press designed to help children explore “social etiquette and positive behaviour.”
Gently humorous with a message about understanding others and getting along together, these charming and heart-warming stories feature endearing characters in readily identifiable situations to engage children and help them think through their own relational dilemmas.
The characterisation of the friends, both through the pictures and the text, is gorgeous. Pickles is a big, warm-hearted bear who loves lazing on the sofa : “Pickles was very comfortable in his favourite armchair, warming his paws in the sun. His tummy rumbled so he licked the fur around his mouth. That was the good thing about being a bear. His fur often hid scrumptious treats”. Bree is a tiny, active, acrobatic live wire of a girl who “had an opinion about everything.” She throws herself into the task at hand – sometimes quite literally!
In the Birthday Party Cake, Bree takes over organising the perfect party for Pickle’s friend – after all, it’s obvious – everyone likes chocolate cake and ‘I Spy’! But do they really? Perhaps Pickle knows his friend best. In Decorating Disaster, after an initial standoff, Bree and Pickles work out how to accommodate different decorative tastes and still work together.
The illustrations are a combination of pastel and earthy colours, beautifully textured (especially the backgrounds) giving the book a ‘classic’ feel. Packaged beautifully, there is much to charm the child reader, from the matt cover with glossy detail and embossed title, through to the endpapers with their tiny detail to entice the reader inside.
These books are refreshingly honest about their instructional purpose, and they do it very well. The last page offers a simple five point “Guide to Good Deeds.” Parents will appreciate the opportunity these books provide as a springboard for discussion.
Reviewed by Debra Tidball
