Hello Twigs, Let’s Find Treasure by Andrew McDonald, illustrated by Ben Wood

Title: Hello Twigs, Let’s Find Treasure

Author: Andrew McDonald, illustrated by Ben Wood

Genre: Humour

Publisher: Hardie Grant

Published: 2^nd August 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 48

Price: $10.99

Synopsis: The world is big when you’re a twig!

From the best-selling creators of Real Pigeons comes a joyous early graphic novel series that you can read aloud.

Ziggy Twig wants to find some treasure, to prove she’s an awesome explorer. So she leads her wooden friends on a big treasure hunt. What fun!

But they can’t find treasure anywhere because they don’t know what treasure IS. How unfortunate! 

Unless … treasure has been with Ziggy all along?

The first four Hello Twigs books will be available in August 2022 Perfect for fans of Narwhal and Jelly, School of Monsters and Elephant and Piggie.

~*~

The Twigs are back, and this time, it’s Ziggy’s turn in the spotlight. She wants to go on a treasure hunt – so she can show everyone what an awesome explorer she is. Her friends, Stump, Noodle, and Red all join in – but they can’t find anything that looks like the treasure that Ziggy wants them to find – nothing is right. Everything is too normal. It’s not shiny or sparkly, and the rocks, twigs, and mud certainly are not interesting enough to put into her backpack. When Ziggy faces one of her biggest fears, her friends do what they can to help her discover that treasure is not always shiny and sparkly, it can often be what was been in front of her the whole time.

Another twig-tastic story about friendship and the magic in the everyday items, the things that we don’t think are treasure but in the end, they can become the most precious items ever. In this story, Ziggy has a very strict idea of treasure – she knows exactly what she wants and knows she just has to keep looking to find it.

The Twigs come together again – as friends do, and I also liked that Ziggy was able to work things out on her own – to develop her critical thinking, as such, so kids can learn as they read this series that sometimes they need help and sometimes they need to work out things on their own. And then there are times when both ways of working out what to do and how to do it can be techniques that are used together, especially if we have good friends who can help us.

The vibrant colour in this series is very eye-catching and engaging, and will draw readers into the stories, which I think can be read in any order at this stage, because I didn’t get the sense that there was any sort of following on from each other. I think this is a good thing as it means kids can choose the one that appeals to them, for example, and go from there. It can help build reading confidence in many ways and get kids to the next level when they are ready. The wonderful thing about children’s literature these days is that there are so many options for every reading level, style, interest and ability and that seems to be growing based on what I am seeing in bookstores, online, and in my publicity guides. I hope that this series captures readers and helps them build their reading confidence and ability in an accessible and fun way. Another great series for early readers.