Title: Who’s the Gang in our Street?

Author: Susanne Gervay

Genre: Narrative non-fiction

Publisher: Big Sky Publishing

Published: 4^th September 2023

Format: Hardback

Pages: 32

Price: $24.99

Synopsis: Who are smart, naughty, love playing tricks, flashy, very loud, but need lots of affection? What is an Australian icon, millions of years old, fast and loves to rock and roll? Another fun and fact filled book from one of Australia’s much-loved authors. Who’s the gang on our street?
Who has funky-punky spikey hair?
Who bops and bounces, dances to a beat and taps their toes?
Who loves snacks and tricks and sharing the fun?
Peek inside to discover the tricks, friendship, and adventure of one of Australia’s favourite neighbourhood gangs!

SMILE ALL DAY. Dive into the gorgeous illustrations and rollicking rhythm of naughty, funny, beautiful, heart- warming cockatoos.

Sulphur-crested cockatoos are a medicine for JOY according to scientific research. When people are ‘blue’, the cockies lift depression and make the world a HAPPY place.

Quirky facts and rollicking rhythm, as the iconic sulphur- crested cockatoos delight and provide invaluable sharing opportunities for adults and kids.

What do toddlers and sulphur crested cockatoos in common? They’re smart, tumble, play tricks and make a lot of noise. Share the fun and lessons our lovely cockatoo’s can teach

us!

Celebrate our Australian wildlife – watch sulphur-crested cockatoos play and live.

Specific links to Australian Curriculum.

About the Book

Who’s The Gang on Our Street is a narrative non-fiction with supporting facts. It is written to delight young people about the antics and values of our loved sulphur-crested cockatoos. It combines creative imagery and information and is on the K-3 Australian national curriculum for Australian birds. It links into the social and emotional module where the sulphur- crested cockatoos have a social structure which embraces equality, inclusion, no bullying, loyalty, and values that relate to the best of what we seek to teach children. They are also funny, playful, affectionate, and smart. Sulphur-crested cockatoos are part of Australian identity in both the city and bush.

~*~

Susanne Gervay is best known to me for her historical fiction set in World War II, so when she asked me to review her new picture book, I was eager to see what she had come up with. The kids in the street are playing together in their gang, but there is another gang in the street too. This gang has punky, spiky hair, and are boppy and bouncy too. They keep tapping their toes and dancing on their toes, and they love to snack and share tricks and fun – sounds like any gang, right? Well, this gang is a not human, they’re a gang of cockatoos. Susanne starts with a human gang of friends, and moves into describing the cockatoo gang, who are present on every page and lead the human gang on a scavenger hunt for them.

This book by Susanne Gervay celebrates cockatoos and shows what they symbolise in Australia, and in her email Susanne told me that Cockatoos are protected in Australia under The Wildlife Act of 1975, and her book serves to teach readers of all ages about cockatoos and their place in Australia. The back of the book has a list of ten fun facts about cockatoos accompanied by a quiz based on the facts. Susanne’s book not only celebrates cockatoos but acts to let people know that they are not annoying, despite cheeky antics like tipping bins over, or turning on bubblers – but they’re doing this because they’re looking for food. Their natural food is seeds and trees, so this book encourages people to understand this and to plant more native trees to give cockatoos a natural and proper source of food. This narrative non-fiction shows the intriguing cockatoo in a positive light, showing that they share this world with cockatoos and can show them how they can be aware of this and help create a space the cockatoos can enjoy as well.

Throughout the book, using a diverse gang of human kids, Susanne shows that sulphur-crested cockatoos have an inclusive social structure that is free from bullying and embraces equality, combining creative imagery with information – so it has earnt its place on the Australian national curriculum for studying Australian birds. This book embraces cockatoos as part of Australia’s national identity in the bush and the city as well. I enjoyed this book and its fun beat as the kids learnt more about cockatoos and their place in our world. It will be one that readers of all ages can enjoy and learn from and find out that there is more to cockatoos than we see. It is filled with laughs as well as being educational, ensuring that readers can have fun whilst learning when they read this book. Its inclusive nature illustrates that there are many ways a gang can form, and in this instance, it is a diverse gang of kids in one street and a gang of cockatoos and the way they all accept and learn from each other that is what makes this book a powerful, educational and inclusive book to read.