A rhyming picture book about the power and destruction of an Australian bushfire with watercolor illustrations by Bruce Whatley featuring hard-hitting scenes like woods in flame, completely destroyed homes, crying families, fire-fighters at work, and animal rescuers in action. Despite the hard reality of the topic, the author and illustrator manage to end with a reminder that "King fire" only temporarily triumphs.  

For those who live in an area with bush fires or who have children who have experienced bush fires, this book would be a great addition to your library shelves and way to start conversations or prepare children for fire season.  

An interesting note about how the illustrations are done: instead of making them have a bleed, the original pencil outline for the main illustration box is shown along with the ragged brush strokes that spill out from it around the edges.  

Today's RhyPiBoMo book is My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch by Graeme Base.  An imaginative celebration both of Australian animals and eccentric relatives, it's a fun, poetic read which would probably be better if I spoke with an Australian accent.  

I realized that out of the ten or so children books I have in my current study pile, they all start with a double spread.  Page one therefore is on the left-hand side of the page, an inner title page to its back.  This A4 size book of Graeme Base's is no different.  It starts with double-page spread ink drawing of a lively grandmother, song-bird on her shoulder and map in the background accompanied by four stanzas explaining where the narrator's grandmother comes from and that there isn't much to make the place famous--except his grandmother.  This is followed by wordless, full-color, double-page spread painting that connects to the narration.  The entire book follows this pattern.  A monochromatic ink drawing with 3-5 stanzas followed by a related wordless, colorful, detailed two-page spread.  Whether stippled ink or full color, the pages have a white border less than a centimeter wide with parts of the illustration bleeding past the border and off the page.  Because of the fairly unusual A4 size, the book seems slightly more narrow and tall than your typical children's book.  (A4 is a standard international copy paper size--slightly taller and narrower than the standard U.S. 8.5 x 11 inch paper)