Just So Stories

I’ve been saving a few especially for today, so this is our nod to dads – those no longer with us, those who are great male models for our kiddos, and those who are doing double duty of both parents.

What My Daddy Loves – Raissa Figueroa

Harper Collins Australia

August 2023

• ISBN: 9780008608408
• ISBN 10: 0008608407
• Imprint: HarperCollins GB
• RRP: $14.99

Dads, like everybody else, are all different and enjoy different things…just as their kiddos do. This is a sweet look at a range of dads and kids, and the things they like doing together. This is an authorial debut for Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Honor winner Raissa Figueroa, and explores the gentle relationship between fathers and children with warmth and some humour e.g. when one pair are studying together, Dad’s laptop has a pear logo on the lid and the kid’s has a slice of pizza. I also like that one dad is clearly wearing a hearing aid, and this is the pair enjoying making music together. And while we know (some of us better than others) that some little ones don’t have the joyful bond, or even the presence, of a father in their lives, many children will be able to offer up suggestions after reading this on what they do with either their dad or father figure. The artwork is bold and colourful, and quite plainly, a great incentive to create dad and child portraits in the classroom. Recommended for readers from Prep upwards.

Finding Papa – Angela Pham Krans. Illustrated by Thi Bui.

Harper Collins Australia

August 2023

• ISBN: 9780063060968
• ISBN 10: 0063060965
• Imprint: HarperCollins US
• RRP: $29.99

This is another debut picture book coming from the US, and is both powerful and poignant based, as it is, on the author’s own lifestory of escaping Vietnam in 1983.

Despite it’s serious and potentially distressing subject matter, the narrative is gentle and lyrical with repeated motifs such as the snapping crocodile and the village mango tree, helping to bolster little Mai, on a long and arduous journey to America.

When her father left to find a new home for them, Mai is sad and does not understand his absence, but letters home make sure that mother and child know that they too will soon have a new home. Their final escape is not easy- overland and through rivers to reach the sea, a fishing boat crammed with refugees, a storm at sea, a rescue by a Dutch freighter after days of floating with minimal supplies, a camp in Singapore, the American Red Cross and, at last, the arrival in America, where little Mai is thoroughly confused by a man with a bushy moustache.

We would have similar stories in Australia of families fleeing famine, war, persecution and death – some from this same period but others still continuing. So, for some children, there could be the potential for some triggering disquiet, but given the lyrical and non-confrontational way the text is delivered, I believe it is more beneficial than harmful.

Certainly, it paves the way for open discussions about displaced persons, cultural identity, family and refugees.The illustrations by Caldecott Honour artist Thi Bui, Mai’s journey is one that comes alive for even very young readers.

I would very much recommend this to you for inclusion in your HASS studies on our Asian neighbours, or as part of events or work around refugees/immigration.