Sunday Chutney

Aaron Blabey (author/illustrator)

Viking, Penguin: Australia: 2008

ISBN: 9780670071791

Genres: picture book

Issues: belonging, differences, friendship

Shortlisted CBCA Awards, 2009.

Sunday Chutney's parents move a great deal. This provides Sunday with some fantastic opportunities; but it also means she constantly has to make new friends, settle into new schools and has no one place to call ‘home'. Being a very positive thinker, Sunday can usually find a way to make the best of things but sometimes, just sometimes she would like to be the one who feels at home when the ‘new girl' arrives.

While this is only Blabey's second picture book, it is obvious that he is going to be an author/illustrator to watch as he has a great capacity to take the reader well beyond the superficial narrative and into the more subtle, complex emotions, responses and experiences of his characters. Sunday demonstrates the resilience and maturity that are built through responding positively to change; yet she also reflects the longing for security and stability that beset all of us from time to time. Blabey's mixed media illustrations reflect this through his use subtle of colour and proportion. Readers will admire Sunday's strength and imagination at the same time as they empathise with her loneliness and longing for a place of her own.