Dappled Annie and the Tigrish
Mary McCallum
Gecko Press
Pub: 2014

 

May 26, 2021

If you love books that are nice and chill and have some morals behind them, then this is the book for you.

Dappled Annie and the Tigrish is a nice calm story about a girl named Annie who talks to bushes in her backyard. The bushes’ names are Russell, Holly, Sprout, Sid, Hog, Manny, Sylvie, George, Mr Hedge, and Mrs Hedge. Annie describes what they do and the consequences of their actions in this book.

The main premise of the story is about a dad who works in a lighthouse and barely comes home. His kids love playing in the bushes and find a nest of baby birds in it, but a strong wind makes the nest fly away. Annie and her little brother Robbie chase after the birds’ nest to bring it back so that way the birds will be safe. If I’m honest, that is just sweet but then again it is nature, so pretty much that is that.

It is a wild ride and once you realise the morals it makes more sense to you. It even has them riding on a flying Tigrish which, to be honest, is a bit weird but still good. There are very few pictures – three to be exact – but the pictures are colourful and tell you the setting of where you are and what you are doing in the moment. To give you more detail, it is a heart-warming story and there are surprises you wouldn’t expect from this book. Oh yeah, about those morals. One of them is to help nature and don’t hurt it.

A little bit about the author Mary McCallum: she was born in 1961 and is an author and journalist from New Zealand. In total, she has written six books including this one. If I was allowed to change the book I wouldn’t because McCallum did an excellent job on it.

The setting of this story is the family’s house and backyard, the lighthouse and a forest. I’d recommend the story for eight to eleven-year-olds and teens and maybe even adults who like fiction. The different characters in the story are bushes, birds, humans, and even objects. You don’t need much knowledge to understand it but some might be necessary, and the genre is fantasy.

In conclusion, this is a great book and I do recommend it. Also if you want to, go support New Zealand authors – they would appreciate it.

Anyway, if you are still reading this then thank you for reading my review. I hope I have convinced you to read this book.

– Zaden Thompson is 12 and lives in Christchurch