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There used to be much anticipation and excitement about children’s annual book ‘treasuries’ and other compilations. Now we have The Hush Treasure Book (Allen & Unwin) to dip into. This book is special for two reasons. Firstly, it takes the Australian charity ‘Hush’ into the world of books. The specially composed Hush CDs have been […]

How Big is Too Small?, Jane Godwin (author), Andrew Joyner (illus.), Penguin, 2015.   Can size hold you back? Can size determine your value? Everyone and everything, from the miniscule to the enormous, has a place in this world. We all have important jobs to do. But Sam wonders – “How big is too small?” […]

As we grow up and experience a variety of things that life has to offer, we become attuned to our own identity and sense of self. We develop tastes, interests, abilities, likes and dislikes, individual quirks, and future aspirations. We are all unique and special in our own little ways. One such individual who is […]

How will you be celebrating this Saturday February 14th?  Some see it as a chance to demonstrate the most romantic of gestures, showering their special ones with gifts of affection. Others only need to show an act of kindness to prove they care. Either way, whether it’s Valentine’s Day, International Book Giving Day or Library […]

Ursula Dubosarsky has written over 40 books for children and young adults. Some of which include The Terrible Plop, Too Many Elephants in This House, Tim and Ed (Tim and Ed Review), The Carousel, The Word Spy series, and The Cryptic Casebook of Coco Carlomagno and Alberta series. She is a multi-award winner of many […]

Having two kids under five is busy enough; constantly picking up after them, the daily hustle and bustle, and the shouts, shrieks and laughter that goes with sibling shenanigans. But what about young, lively, always busy, curious twins? Now that would be a handful! Ursula Dubosarsky and Andrew Joyner make a great award-winning team, already […]

Author Ursula Dubosarsky? Check. Illustrator Andrew Joyner? Check. Elephants? Check. But not too many at all. In fact, this book wouldn’t be even half way as cool if it didn’t have simply too many elephants, which raises the question: can anyone really have too many elephants?

Eric really likes elephants. He has them everywhere. In the living room, in the kitchen, in the hallway, bathroom and bedroom. There’s an entire herd of rollicking elephants delighting and engaging this young lad from dawn ’til dusk.

BUT his mother doesn’t like it. Not one little bit. ‘There are too many elephants in this house,’ she says. ‘They’ve got to go.’

Naturally, Eric is devastated and will try anything to keep his baggy friends safe, including thinking up a very efficient means of elephant storage.

Dubosarsky’s penchant for childlike fun shines through in this adorable book, with Andy Joyner’s timeless and joy-filled illustrations taking her text to even greater heights. With a deliciously retro feel, this is imaginative, childhood magic at its best.

A must for picture book collectors – and kids.

Too Many Elephants in this House is published by Penguin.

Here on the blog I’m sometimes keen to note those titles and series available in parts of the world that are not the United States.  Folks will send me great books from around the globe but even in my new fancy dancy position as a Materials Specialist I cannot buy those books for my system unless they’re published in my own country.  So, rather than suffer in silence, I’m just going to taunt the rest of you stuck here in America with me by showing you the books that none of us can have.

Early chapter titles are always a bit difficult to locate, particularly when you want something with a reading level above Frog and Toad but below something like Toys Go Out.  It’s a tricky reading age.  Maybe that’s part of the reason I was so taken with the Boris books by Andrew Joyner.  We Yanks probably know Joyner best for the illustrations he did for Ursula Dubosarsky’s incredibly fun readaloud The Terrible Plop (and word on the street suggests that the pair will be producing an elephant-related picture book next, so keep your eyes peeled for that one).  Joyner’s an Aussie illustrator and he has this fun eclectic style that unfortunately we’ve only ever seen over here in that one particular book.

The Boris books, which have never come to our fair shores, follow in a long and worthy tradition of exceptional Australian early chapter books.  I kid not.  In my library we’ve great affection for titles like Wombat and Fox: Tales of the City and Joy Cowley’s Snake and Lizard (which, admittedly, is from New Zealand so I’m not entirely certain why I’m even mentioning it here).  The Boris books, for their part, are best equated with Captain Underpants.  Not in content (there are remarkably few talking toilets to be found here) but in structure.  Joyner moves effortlessly between small written sections and big illustrations with comic style text.  The books are just slightly younger than Dav Pilkey’s in terms of reading level, and the pictures are full color glossy illustrations.  Really gorgeous.

As far as I can tell there have been only four Boris books at this point; Boris, Boris Gets a Lizard, Ready,Set,Boris and Boris Sees the Light.  They each star a plucky warthog and his friends and you wouldn’t even notice they were Australian were it not for the occasional extra “u” they toss into their vocabulary words now and then.  There are also some great terms like “chooks” for &

Andrew Joyner
(Illustration from The Terrible Plop by Ursula Dubosarsky)