Reviews: Easter Round Up

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Easter is just around the corner! Bee Trudgeon reviews the newest batch of picture books with chickens, fairies, and rabbits. Fun to read at Easter, or any time of year.

I’m going to be straight up about this: my favourite thing about Easter—beyond my house—is rabbits… closely followed by chickens. At home, I highly value treasure hunts (especially in known fairy territory), baking, unstructured reading time, and being with my whānau. I got to happily tick all my festive book boxes with this swag of (almost entirely) non-chocolate based, picture book goodness.    

Te Tunu Keke: Cake Bake; Te Hōpua Kaukau: The Swimming Hole; Te Rapu Kura: Treasure Hunt; by Norah Wilson, illustrated by Kimberly Andrews, nā Pania Papa i whakamāori (Scholastic NZ)

Let’s start with a little rāpeti who is destined to become a classic staple of kiwi kids’ bookshelves. Following on from Goodnight: Pō Mārie, Te Wā Tākaro: Playtime, and Te Rehi: The Race, Norah Wilson and Kimberley Andrews offer a welcome continuation of their E Oma, Rāpeti: Run, Rabbit reorua series. Like their predecessors, each book employs the vehicle of language structure repetition, to deliver a magic formula of subtly pressing home a learning objective, within a warm-hearted, satisfying narrative. Perfect for the youngest readers, a valuable emotional lesson is revealed by the end of each warm tale.

Te Hōpua Kaukau: The Swimming Hole is a relatable, child-sized adventure, highlighting the importance of familial support. In the gorgeously rendered setting of the title place, we see Rāpeti sitting with their fear, while shyly describing the many characteristics of water that prevent them hopping in…

‘E makariri rawa ana. It’s too cold…’

Their friends are encouraging and reassuring, but it takes one very special presence to instill the final piece of security needed—Māmā. 

In Te Rapu Kura: Treasure Hunt, a rhythmic lesson in locational language—‘Kei raro… under’, ‘Kei muri… behind’, ‘Kei runga… on/above’—leads to the assertion that friends are the truest of treasures. Kimberly Andrews has created a misty watercolour world, replete with plenty of deep and reflective settings for these characters to live in. As they set out to explore it—with the endearingly inquisitive gusto one often sees in preschoolers—their expressions shine through indomitably. 

But ‘Auē. Oh dear’; Rāpeti begins to show signs of exhaustion as this thorough search begins to seem fruitless, and, ‘E pōuri haere ana. It is getting dark.’ The line detail is quite wonderful, really drawing one into our adorable little champion’s tender feelings.

Te Tunu Keke: Cake Bake is an early introduction to instructional text and the concept of recipes. Ingredient and food names, counting, and patience lead to good manners, an opportunity to express gratitude… and he keke—a cake!

Use of speech bubbles—which was mixed in the first three books—is almost totally employed in these subsequent three, utilising the comic book style that allows multiple characters to speak, and be identified within group speech, easily. It also allows for a seamless integration of reorua text, allowing one to slip into Te Reo Māori or English, exclusively, interchangeably, or bilingually.

Lovely for lap-sharing, and useful for learning to read, at any time of year.  

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Hatch and Match, by Ruth Paul (Walker Books)

While dawn breaks on a community gathering for a country fair, a flock of technicolour chickens wakes and descends from their roost in a tree. While the gathering of farmers, musicians, families, and vehicles of all kinds could foreground the action on its own, it’s the chickens who will largely fill these pages. Let the rhymes begin.

‘Hens jump down, stretch their legs. Can you help them find their eggs?’

Seek-and-find books are always popular, and this “search-and-match adventure” combines a neat narrative, pattern recognition, plus the opportunity to practise other basic mathematical skills.

‘Cluck, cluck, cluck. Scritch and scratch. Chickens look for eggs that match.’

And there are so many that do… and so many that are variations and combinations on themes. These chickens feel quite different from Ruth Paul’s previous illustrations. There is a delightfully patchwork quality to them that feels remembered from 1970s children’s curtain prints. (I had some nostalgic fun furnishing this hunch google-searching that phrase).

The humans that provide the backdrop are also dressed in riots of stars, flowers, checks, spirals and spots, providing even more opportunities to name and recognise shapes, colours, and even clothing. “Can you find someone wearing a striped T-shirt?,” could prompt a rereading. “How many people are wearing stars?,” likewise. 

The questions could get more complex with the developing of a reader’s abilities. “How many triangles can you find in this book?,” for example, could keep an eager eye of any age occupied for ages.

When it’s time for the chicks to hatch, they bear the same family resemblances as their mothers and eggs, giving the chance to do some really detailed sorting of the elements of each picture. And it’s here that, even while it is excelling at meeting picture puzzle status, Hatch and Match elevates itself far above it.

‘It’s not an easy thing to do, some bits match but some are new. Same but different. Can you see?’ The final text-spread zooms out to show us the chickens in the context of their human world. ‘Just the same as you and me.’

The last-page picture, of chickens and chicks sorted into their corresponding families gives comforting closure to a really special picture book experience.

Buy it for every preschooler you know.  

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The Easter Bunny Hunt, by Stacy Gregg, illustrated by Sarah Jennings (HarperCollins) 

Stacy Gregg leaves the world of horses behind to bring us a cast of animals who can (albeit a bit bizarrely) not only hang out inside a house, but really know how to party while they are in there (in other words, my kind of mammals).

When a cautious Dog and an enthusiastic, but clueless, Cat are faced with an eggless Easter, Cat heads out in search of the Easter Bunny.

The generous 280 x 250mm format allows scenes so lively they’re almost animated to unfold, showing us inside and outside views of this humanless house, with lots of views through windows and doors. I love the way that, as Dog looks increasingly perturbed by a growing number of lively animals—none of which are the Easter Bunny—the visitors just get on with enjoying the place. They chill out on the furniture, hit the snacks, and—when a funky chicken is brought in on the strength of their basket of eggs—launch a dance party. Pretty soon, there is a tiger attempting the limbo, a fox spinning multiple hula hoops, a balloon twisting ass, and a rat with a cocktail swinging from a disco ball. You know, one of those parties.

Of course, the moral of the story is, that’s exactly the kind of action that will attract the Easter Bunny to your house. So, if you keep things wild this Easter, a little chocolate is sure to become involved!   

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The New Zealand Easter Activity Book, by Sarina Dickson, illustrated by Hilary Jean Tapper (Hachette NZ)

This activity book, based around the world of The Fairies’ Easter Egg Surprise, would be a lovely Good Friday gift, to keep little ones engaged with magical Easter themes throughout the long weekend. Puzzles, a cut-out fairy crown, and Easter card template, colouring pages, and drawing challenges add extra layers of interaction with this peaceful village of forest fairies. What a lovely place to escape for some post-chocolate high, special downtime. Includes two sheets of colour stickers featuring elements from the illustrations, and plenty of inspiration for extended fairy play beyond the pages.

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