A well written & illustrated PNG children’s book
23 December 2016
PHIL FITZPATRICK
The Legend of Timbaloo the Clever Cockatoo by Rebecca Duckworth, CreateSpace, 2016, ISBN: 978-1539774792, 30 pages, US$15.00 (AU$20.40/K47.60) plus postage. Available from Amazon here
THE largest template of the online self-publishing company CreateSpace is about A4 size and this is what Rebecca Duckworth has used for her new book about a sulphur-crested cockatoo called Timbaloo.
Rebecca has simply dropped her illustrations into each page with the words underneath. With a bit of effort the illustrations and text in such a format could be merged for a more interesting effect.
This is intended to be the first in a series of children’s books and I expect the design will be refined as Rebecca masters the CreateSpace medium.
Those comments should not detract from this book, which is well-written and has attractive and attention-grabbing illustrations. It also has enough quirkiness to appeal to 8 – 10 year old Papua New Guinean children.
Timbaloo the clever cockatoo chases a band of loggers out of the forest using his ability to mimic human voices and machinery.
Young readers will enjoy this humorous escapade as the loggers run away in a panic thinking a tree is about to fall on them.
Rebecca was born in Papua New Guinea, growing up in the Western Highlands, and now lives in San Diego, California in the USA.
Like many of us, she has fond memories of PNG, especially of the people and the wonderful rainforests.
She says she will “always remember PNG and value the influence it had in developing my greater understanding of the world”.
Rebecca is a passionate advocate for the environment and is concerned about the unfettered exploitation of the forests in PNG and the impact of this on people and animals.
The cost of the book might be prohibitive for most Papua New Guinean parents and teachers, which is a shame. With the cost of postage it will probably be about K60 a copy, well beyond most family budgets.
Hopefully it will end up in a few libraries. Maybe Buk Bilong Pikininni will pick it up.
It sounded a bit like Rio 2 but set in PNG.
Posted by: Francis Nii | 23 December 2016 at 02:38 PM