Emu
An exciting book in the narrative non-fiction series Nature Storybooks. Now in paperback!
In the open forest, Emu gathers granite-green eggs under soft feathers. Emu will care for the eggs and protect the stripy chicks once they hatch. There are many hazards in the forest for this unusual family.
Resources
Creators
Claire Saxby writes award-winning fiction, non-fiction and poetry for young people. She writes about history, about nature and more. Her books include Nature Storybooks (Big Red Kangaroo, Emu, Koala, Dingo, Kookaburra, Great White Shark, Tasmanian Devil and Wedge-tailed Eagle) which celebrate Australian wildlife and the places they live. Her historical novel, The Wearing of the Green, explores early colonial Melbourne. Claire lives by the sea and believes our world is a place of many wonders. For further information visit www.clairesaxby.com
Born in Sydney sometime last century, Graham Byrne did the usual school and university time, worked as an electrical engineer for years, then went into building houses and structures. The old back injury put paid to hard physical work. An interest in art as a creative adjunct to the practical nature of building led to formal education, work installing artworks at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, and wonderings about other roads to explore. Wanting his art to have some “practical” useful purpose, to be illuminating, pointed Graham to illustration and design pathways. Explorations of drawing, painting, filling sketchbooks, making books for his grandchildren and illustrating short stories have combined to prompt his journey as a book illustrator. Big Red Kangaroo, Graham’s first picture book, was a CBCA Notable for the Eve Pownall Award for Information Books and short-listed for the Griffith University Children's Book Award, part of the Queensland Literary Awards. In 2015 his second book Emu was short-listed for the CBCA Book of the Year: Eve Pownall Award for Information Books and was a winner of the Environment Award for Children's Literature, nonfiction category.
Reviews
Byrne’s spiky digital illustrations perfectly display the emus’ hairlike feathering and their awkward-looking flightless movement.
The Horn Book
The descriptive language Claire Saxby uses is exciting and superbly crafted… And Graham Byrne provides gloriously textured, scratchy/splodgy storytelling illustrations that truly convey the eucalyptus forest setting of the narrative.
Red Reading Hub
Fascinating.
Creative a Kids Book
