Title: The Bestest Brown
Author: Briony Stewart
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Hachette Australia/Lothian
Published: 22nd September 2026
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 32
Price: $24.99
Synopsis: A joyful and cheeky rhyming book that mixes toilet humour with colour theory, from award-winning creator Briony Stewart.
Art smock, paper, paint brush – Go!
I’m a colour-mixer pro.
Today I’ll make a brand-new colour,
Something brilliant – like no other.
A squirt of yellow, a dash of blue …
Oh. That’s green. That’s nothing new.
Red and blue makes … purple. Drat!
It’s nice, but everyone’s seen that …
Herve Tullet meets Poo Poo Bum Bum Wee Wee in this irreverent early childhood book that mixes toilet humour with colour theory. Fun read-aloud rhyme and joyous illustrations will delight readers young and old.
~*~
The child in this book is at school in an art class, and is determined to create something new. A new colour, a new picture, something that nobody has ever seen before. But every combination they come up with is brown or something everyone knows. Okay, maybe the glittery brown is something new! But there has to be a new colour they can find somewhere that will please them!
This new picture book from Briony Stewart cheekily combines toilet humour and art, but in what I felt was a more tasteful way than some other books. It’s subtle enough for people to see the art aspect, yet it is also one where readers can insert their own rhyme in the pauses. I think this works well, because it has layers to the meanings different readers can get from the story, and what they see in it. I liked this aspect, so every reader gets their own value out the story which is what I think is something that every book should be able to do.
It’s aimed at early childhood, which is when this humour is most likely to be a thing, and it works really well. It’s fun and simple, with clever ways of teaching children language and word associations. It also introduces them to art, and the fun of creating your own colours and pictures, which is always a lot of fun to see in books.
Books like this explore lots of different aspects of creativity, childhood and the joy we find in simple things, in the things that shape us and what we enjoy doing in our spare time. It’s also a reminder to embrace the silliness, be creative and to have fun. To create, to play, to imagine. I think that’s the most important thing in this book. A reminder of what makes us human, and what makes creativity sing.
This was a fun book, and I hope kids enjoy it.
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