Kayleen WEST Without Me? Wombat, 2013 unpaged $18.95 ISBN 9781921632532 SCIS 1632879
Despite the sunny skies and obvious clues of a happy family the young child in this picture book wants to run away from home using the familiar refrain ‘No one loves me. No one needs me’. After the ten minutes it takes to think through the issues one by one, including taking each family member and both pets because they can’t do without him, it appears he is indispensable after all. And as we know, well loved.
I would have preferred the character to say ‘If I went without my brother…’ instead of ‘If my brother went without me’ for the context of the story. However, the story does articulate all the best reasons not to run away from home, including counting to ten before you leave.
reviewed by Christine Oughtred