Welcome to one of the May 18th stops on the blog tour for Zebra’s Day Out by Susan Polites and Gabrielle Scully, illustrated by Rex Patrick, organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.
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About the Book
Zebra’s Day Out
by Susan Polites & Gabrielle Scully
Illustrated by Rex Patrick
Published 14 October 2020
Tellwell Talent
Genre: Children’s Fiction
Page Count: 18
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!
Zebra is excited when he hears that he will be going out to the cafe with Gabrielle and Gran. But there is a lot that Zebra still has to learn about days out. Is a cafe anything like the circus in the picture book? Will he like the food there? Will there be playing?
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Excerpt
One day, Zebra heard Gabrielle’s Mama say, “Gran is coming to look after you today.” Zebra was excited; he liked it when Gran came over.
After breakfast the doorbell rang. Gabrielle opened the door and there was Gran, with a big smile on her face. Zebra thought she looked like the smiling circus clown in Gabrielle’s storybook – except without a tomato for a nose.
“Now, what shall we do today?” Gran said.
“Play!” said Gabrielle.
So they played with all of Gabrielle’s toys.
Even Zebra.
After a while Gran said, “I’m thirsty!”
“Me too!” said Gabrielle.
“Let’s go to the café.”
“Can Lucy and Rainbow and Zebra come too?” asked Gabrielle.
Gran wasn’t sure. Zebra did cause quite a lot of trouble sometimes.
“Oh please!” Gabrielle said.
“Zebra will promise to be good. Won’t you, Zebra?”
But Zebra was not listening.
My Review
My Rating: 3.5 Stars
Consider liking my review on Goodreads
I was granted complimentary access to Zebra’s Day Out as part of my participation in a blog tour for this title with Goddess Fish Promotions. Thank you to all involved in affording me this opportunity! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.
When Gabrielle convinces her grandmother that Zebra should come along on their outing to the cafe, Zebra’s world gets a whole lot bigger. It’s a cute story about how to treat others and how to behave in public, and I think it definitely has its place in classrooms and as a bedtime story with slightly older young readers.
I do think the text chunks could have been distributed a little more evenly, as some pages had just a couple sentences while others had large block paragaphs. Kids younger than their Kindergarten year probably aren’t going to sit through that (I know my 3.5 year old didn’t) but primary grade kids probably will.
The illustrations are captivating and the artist is clearly very skilled. I do think these pictures will draw kids in and keep them interested. Purely as a personal preference critique point, I found it a little distracting that so much of the illustrations were full of small details and demonstrated excellent understanding of shape and form on behalf of the artist, yet half the time the zebra was drawn (and not “by Gabrielle”) the shape was very rudimentary and the colouring messy. As a fellow artist, the style choice stood out in a distracting way. Kids absolutely will not mind, and the other half of the zebra images were beautiful!
Overall this is a cute kids book that would not go amiss in the hands of kids (or their parents/teachers) ages 5+.
About the Authors
Susan Polites is a freelance story-writer, and her ten-year-old granddaughter Gabrielle Scully likes writing stories too. When they spend days together they often share in the adventures of Gabrielle’s toy-friends. During the pandemic lockdown in Melbourne they were unable to meet in person, so they decided to work together remotely and write down some of the toy-friends’ adventures. Gabrielle’s great-grandfather Rex Patrick, an architect and artist, had done a series of illustrations when he first heard about the adventures, and Gabrielle added some of her own drawings to make the story into an early-childhood picture book, and a family project.
Giveaway Alert!
The authors will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
a Rafflecopter giveawayDisclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Thanks for hosting!
Sounds like a great read.
Thank you for your review!
Sounds like a good book.