Just So Stories

February 2024

• ISBN-13: 9789815066777
• Publisher: MARSHALL CAVENDISH
  Imprint: MARSHALL CAVENDISH INTNL ASIA
• RRP: $14.99

It took Little Matilda a while to find friends so it is understandable that she isn’t always aware of how important it is to treat our friends (indeed, anyone) with kindness. And, as we know, for Smalls their emotions can run rampant, as they haven’t quite yet learned to self-regulate these.

Little Matilda and friend, Jack, are off on a day adventure to explore nature: ducks to feed, koala and joey to admire, baby possum to oooh-ahhh over and all the glorious bush to explore. It’s been a wonderful outing, until they reach home and Little Matilda cannot find her bunny.

There would be few parents/caregivers who have not experienced the trauma of this (we once got all the way back to NSW from Queensland to discover we had inadvertently left behind Tigger, The Kid’s mum’s constant bed buddy – lucky the post was quicker in those days!!).

Little Matilda works herself into quite the frenzy and poor Jack has to suffer the impact. He tries to keep her calm, stops her from rushing out in the rainy night – where an owl swooping by would just love a kitten snack – but has no hope of stopping her screaming, yowling, scratching and thumping.

When she finally calms herself a little – lo and behold! – she spots bunny ears in her backpack. Clearly, her first search was not very thorough. While she is happy again, Jack is not and Little Matilda learns a valuable lesson in maintaining a friendship.

With a rhyming text that Smalls will enjoy, and absolutely delightful illustrations bringing both characters and settings to vivid life for your little readers, this is not only a pertinent read but an extremely useful one to share with our youngest readers.

For many, still in these early weeks of a new school year, there is a lot to learn about navigating friendships and any book that helps with that, emotional intelligence and self-regulation is an absolute boon.

Well done to both author and illustrator! I give it a very enthusiastic recommendation for your Smalls from around 3/4 years upwards.