STORY WITH SOARING MESSAGE

Title: Author: Publisher: RRP:

A Bag and a Bird Pamela Allen Penguin/Viking $24.99

★★★★★

SOME people think ibis are just noisy birds that hang around rubbish bins.

But have you watched them fly or seen them searching for food the way nature intended? They are magnificent, soaring high as they fly in formation across the sky and zoom in to land like jet aircraft.

They aren’t happy about landing in the water, though, and that is what happens to the poor ibis in this book that struggles in flight when a plastic bag is caught around its neck.

The story is set around Sydney Harbour, so kids who have visited there will be able to imagine the places John and his mother visit as they pack their lunch in a plastic bag and walk from Kirribilli across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to Circular Quay, past the Opera House and along the shore to the Royal Botanic Gardens.

It’s not necessary to have been there, though, to enjoy this story and beautiful illustrations by acclaimed children’s author Pamela Allen.

As John and his mum enjoy their sandwiches a wind gust picks up the bag and carries it off, surrounded by squawking gulls and the poor ibis. When the bag is caught around the ibis’s neck it slows the bird’s flight and the ibis ends up in the harbour, with the bag filling with water.

An unexpected hero emerges and John learns a lesson about what happens if plastic bags escape into the environment.

This is a great story for parents to read to their children, with a message conveyed by carefully chosen words and illustrations.