ALL CONTENT © DONOVAN BIXLEY 2014
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  • SQUAWK! Forest Birds of Aotearoa
  • Flying Furballs: 9 BOOK SERIES
  • Flying Furballs TAKE-OFF! full colour comic
  • Draw Some Awesome
  • How Maui Fished Up The North Island
  • How Maui Slowed The Sun
  • Maui and the Secret of Fire
  • A Portrait of Leonardo
  • Much Ado About Shakespeare
  • Mozart, the man behind the music
  • The Great Kiwi ABC Book
  • The Great Kiwi 123 Book
  • The Wheels on the Bus
  • Old MacDonald's Farm
  • The Good Old Looky Book
  • The Chritsmas Looky Book
  • The Looky Book
  • Little Bo Peep and More...
  • Pussycat Pussycat and More...
  • My First Board Book Series (6 books)
  • Fuzzy Doodle
  • Monkey Boy
  • Dinosaur Rescue: 8 BOOK SERIES
  • Dragon Knight: 6 BOOK SERIES
  • Three Bears Sort Of
  • Little Red Riding Hood ... Not Quite
  • We've Got A Boat
  • The Weather Machine
  • Dashing Dog
  • Northwood
  • Maddy West and the Tongue Taker
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  • Phoebe and the Night Creatures
  • The Story of Bo and the Circus that Wasn't
  • A Right Royal Christmas
  • Faithfully Mozart -the fantastic world of Wolfgang Armadeus Mozart
  • The Tuotara and the Skink
  • Wacko Kakapo

 

  

THE LOOKY BOOK 2012

Illustrated by Donovan Bixley
Softcover and Hardcover
280 x 210mm (landscape), 24 pages 

TOP 50 WHITCOULLS BOOK

 

 

 

A fun kiwiana I spy, featuring all your favourite

characters from the bestselling "Wheels on the Bus"

and "Old MacDonald's Farm" including: squidly

the colossal squid and the All Black Lambs.


REVIEWED ON BESTFRIENDSRBOOKS.COM

The Looky Book is a puzzle book with 11 different puzzles, 

all with colourful New Zealand landscapes, birds and animals.  

There are heaps of things to find in each picture, like find the 

numbers with the crazy All Black lambs, spot the difference 

with the mischievous keas, find the animals hidden deep in the 

bush, and match the farmers to their animals.  My favourite 

pictures are the ones where you have to spot what’s wrong in 

the scene.  In the beach scene on the first page, you can find a 

shark in a paddling pool and a man watching TV in the bath.  

There are hours of fun for kids and adults, and when you’ve 

solved all the puzzles, you can go back and find the tui and 

the grumpy garden gnome on each page.

I love Donovan’s illustrations and The Looky Book just shows 

how versatile he is.  Not only does he give each human or animal 

it’s own personality, but he can make these a small part of a large 

scene.  He makes every little detail count, and these little details 

are hilarious (sheep holding up a ‘Lamb Carter’ banner or a penguin 

wearing a tie).  The reason I love Donovan’s illustrations is because 

they are always so colourful and they seem to glow.  He seems to 

use this effect that makes certain objects or characters shine.  Just 

look at the front cover and you’ll see what I mean (the eyes, the 

telescope and the kea’s beak).  I would love to know how long it 

took Donovan to create each spread.

There is an incredible amount to see on each page, and some 

things you won’t see the first time. Donovan his given the book 

a real Kiwi feel too, with lots of local wildlife and some Kiwi 

icons like Hokey Pokey ice cream.  If you have a very keen eye 

you might even spot a reference to one of Margaret Mahy’s stories 

on the first page.