Amazing Amelia

Susannah McFarlane (author)

Lachlan Creagh (illustrator)

Scholastic Press, Australia: 2011

ISBN: 9781741696783

Genre: picture book

Issues: gifted

'Amelia is the most active and athletic ant on the anthill, actually in all of Australia. She adores all activities and has awesome abilities!'

Amelia demonstrates her amazing accomplishments on every page – acrobatics, tennis (she's an ace), Aussie Rules... anything that can possibly involve an 'a' in other words! All goes well until Amelia has a terrible accident and hurts her arm. How is such a Mrs Twitchit going to cope with being inactive? In a very Amelia way, it seems!

This first book in an A-Z of 'Little Mates' - Australian animals with very advanced vocabulary will delight children who love to play with words and do much to enrich their personal wordbank. Susannah McFarlane is an experienced and clever writer (EJ12 series, amongst others). She has a great capacity to polish her prose so that the even the contrived sounds fluent. The small physical size (14cm x 14cm) is perfect for small hands and the very reasonable price ($4.99) achievable with pocket money, as Beatrix Potter's tales once used to be.