Just So Stories

Allen & Unwin

April 2024

ISBN: 9781761180361

Publisher: A&U Children’s

Imprint: A & U Children

RRP: $24.99

It’s always a pleasure to review a book from one of our talented local authors, and most definitely Inda Ahmad Zahri has made a big splash [sorry, not sorry 😂] in the Brisbane kids lit community.

Most of my friends know that I’m not much for Maths, but there are some aspects that always fascinate me such as the Fibonacci sequence/Golden Ratio. The infinite nature of numbers is another such pet exception to my general rule.

Inda brings to this book what could be called a philosophical slant on both ocean and maths, as she takes readers on a voyage of discovery. The narrative, in attempting to quantify the oceans, shows the difficulty of trying to capture something so infinite and vast with tools not able to do so. But with a clever twist revealed at the end of the book, this becomes a metaphor for more qualitative rather than quantitative aspects of life. Smalls are invited to substitute the words ‘the ocean’ with qualities which are also ‘un-measurable’ such as creativity and kindness.

Inda is a multi-skilled human: surgical doctor, author and illustrator with a passion for scuba-diving which has translated beautifully into this glorious book. This will be a valuable discussion piece as well as a very useful resource for maths investigations with your kiddos.

The recent Brisbane book launch for this book was a huge success, although unfortunately I couldn’t attend, attested to by some of my lovely creator friends. I highly recommend it to you for all its qualities with 5 🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊.