- CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS. AT THE BOTTOM OF EACH PAGE IS A LINK TO ONLINE SALES. OR CLICK HERE FOR DIRECT LINKS TO MY BOOKS ON MIGHTY APE NEW ZEALAND
- 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
- 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.