Book review: Eco Warriors to the Rescue, by Tania McCartney

Eco Warriors to the Rescue is a jazzy, up-beat picture book with a series of simple messages about caring for the environment.  There’s nothing particularly new in it, but it’s presented in an interesting way.

Primarily visual, the messages ask children

• not to litter,
• to tread carefully,
• to avoid picking native flowers,
• to keep waterways clean
• to protect native animals from introduced animals
• care for native animals and insects
• plant native trees and shrubs
• plan development wisely (the example is a cubby house, not a condo !)
• prevent bushfires
• reduce pollution.

Bright photos in cheerful colours are superimposed on botanical illustrations identified in end notes at the end of the book.  There’s also a page of flower facts at the back of the book, along with a map of Australia showing state floral emblems, and a native birth plants page.

Eco Warriors to the Rescue would be a useful addition to school libraries, and suitable for units of work about the environment, and the Australian Curriculum Priority Sustainability.

The book mentions colouring-in pages on the Australian National Botanic Gardens website, but it doesn’t give the URL.  Having checked the site out, it doesn’t look very appealing to children.  I would have liked to see some interactive activities, and the site needs to be more kid-friendly, more colourful, and easier to navigate.

Author: Tania McCartney
Title: Eco Warriors to the Rescue
Publisher: National Library of Australia, 2013
ISBN: 9780642277800
Source: review copy courtesy of the NLA.

Availability

Fishpond: Eco Warriors to the Rescue!
Or direct from the National Library of Australia

Review: Riley and the Jumpy Kangaroo, A journey around Canberra, by Tania McCartney

It’s Canberra’s anniversary this year, and among all the other memorabilia, this cute little picture book is bound to attract a tourist or two…

The Riley books are a series which take the intrepid young aviator Riley around the world.  So far he has visited Beijing, Hong Kong, Sydney, Melbourne, and now Canberra, Australia’s bush capital.  This time he pursues a kangaroo around the city streets, with the cartoon images of Riley in his plane and the kangaroo against a backdrop of Canberra’s major tourist attractions.  The photography is very good indeed, conveying the atmosphere of Canberra’s wide (and mostly empty) streets, its bush atmosphere, its modern architecture and spacious streetscapes, and its variable weather.

Which is why, even though this book is clearly pitched at 8-9 year old children to introduce them to our national capital, the book has some value for older ones too.  Our school takes a bunch of Year 5 & 6 students to Canberra every second year, and there are always a few ‘leftovers’ who are required to do a project on Canberra while the others are away.  We make this project as palatable as possible with lots of fun online activities, and I think the students will enjoy this light-hearted look at the places their classmates are visiting.

Little visitors from overseas would like it as a souvenir too, of course!

Author: Tania McCartney
Illustrator: Kieron Pratt
Title: Riley and the Jumpy Kangaroo
Publisher: Ford St Publishing, 2013
ISBN: 9781925000030
Review copy courtesy of Ford St Publishing (and donated to my school library)

Availability

Fishpond: Riley and the Jumpy Kangaroo