Donovan Bixley

With Leonardo da Vinci, Wolfgang Mozart and Edgar Degas to help him, Donovan Bixley packs a lot into this slim volume. While many How-to-Draw books offer page after page of step-by-srep drawings for children to copy, Donovan is more concerned with unleashing the young artist's creativity
"But I don't want you to draw like me. I want to teach you to draw like YOU!"
To this end he includes information on techniques, building skils, sources of inspirartion and artists' tricks such as perspective, shading, shadows and composition. The book is full of Donovan's wonderful illustrations and characteristic quirkiness. He also includes plenty of more basic drawings saying
"I couldn't draw like this when I was young, so let's turn the page and start with something everyone can do."
He also includes pictures that he drew when he was a boy to show how far he has come.
Any child with an interest in drawing will love this book and by following Donvan's suggestions is bound to improve their skill..I agree with Leonardo when, on the inside cover, he says,
“I wish I’d had a book like this when I was young.”… (mehr)

Set on a quintessentially New Zealand farm, as the sun yawns we say good night to a variety of creatures as we move from inside the farmhouse to the nearby fields and then to the wider countryside. Until the last spread, everyone and everything is going to sleep but the book ends with the kiwi who are just waking up and wish us "Pō Mārie".
Donovan has wisely chosen not to make this a rhyming book, but has instead used alliteration and the occasional internal rhyme to give it a poetic quality "Seals are snoozing along the seashore. Penguins are cuddled-up in a huddle." The quality of the writing is matched by that of the illustrations. Each spread has lots of detail to explore without becoming too busy - this is a book that repays detailed inspection.
From the front cover with its sleepy animals and swirls of starry blue to the back end paper with thumbnails of lots of creatures tucked up in their various beds, this book contains everything you could want in a bedtime book for small people. No doubt they will be lulled to sleep by the dreamy palette and gentle rhythm of the text.… (mehr)

Its 1804 and Jimmy Grimholt, youngest of 13 children, has just joined the Royal Navy. He is the smallest sailor aboard the H.M.S Fury, a warship bound for the English Channel to fight off Napoleon Bonaparte and his army. Jimmy is assigned to the crew manning 'Blasting Betty', a 32 pound cannon. His job as a 'powder monkey' means that during battles he has to run to the most dangerous place on the ship, the magazine store, retrieve bags of gunpowder, then race back to the crew. Jimmy also has an unusual talent; after almost drowning he can now see terrifying ghosts. He thought he had left them behind in Puddleditch, but no, ghosts can also be found aboard battleships and the descriptions are so gruesome that I was scared!

Winner of the Junior Fiction Award in the 2015 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. I love the drawings and extra detail in this book (plus the slang words) which must have taken a lot of research. The terrible food and motley crew, plus the bullying by the older boys and officers paints a realistic picture about what a hard life it must have been. Great for upper primary and intermediate students.… (mehr)

We all know the song ‘the wheels on the bus go round and round…’ but this time it has undergone a New Zealand makeover by illustrator Donovan Bixley. The vibrantly coloured bus takes a tiki-tour around Aotearoa from Cape Reinga at the top of the North Island to the fiords of Milford Sound at the bottom of the South Island, picking up iconic kiwi creatures as it goes. Kiwi is at the wheel and along the journey they pick up weta, tuatara, gecko, swordfish, kokako, dog and cow among others. The bus even stops for ice-cream and goes whale watching with a colossal squid thrown in for good measure. There is a fun children’s map of New Zealand which points out the places that the bus visits. The last page contains a musical score and inside the front and back covers the creatures are all named underneath a small picture of each one. This book is delightfully done and thoroughly enjoyable. This is sure to become a kiwi classic used extensively in pre-school, schools, libraries and in the home.… (mehr)