The Wildlife Winter Games by Richard Turner

Illus. by Ben Clifford. Starfish Bay Children's Books, 2019. ISBN: 9781760360757.
(Age: 5-12 years). Recommended. Themes: Sports, Animals, Arctic, Antarctic, Winter sporting events. The Wildlife Winter Games is a very different and interactive look at popular winter sporting events. These events, clearly explained on each page, include such sports as ice hockey, bobsled, luge and curling. Rather than humans competing, the author Richard Turner has used a variety of Arctic and Antarctic creatures to compete for each of the gold, silver or bronze medals on offer. Some of these creatures, the caribou, musk ox, colossal squid and the snowshoe hare will be unfamiliar to the reader who has to decide which one will win the event and receive which medal. To help the reader make a choice there are interesting and often little known facts about each creature presented on the page.
The illustrations by Ben Clifford are quite stunning. There is so much detail to take in that the reader is drawn back to the page time and time again in case something is missed. For those children who are sports mad this would be a perfect shared or partner read as many of these unique winter sports do not feature widely in Australian life nor do the amazing creatures competing in the wildlife games.
Kathryn Beilby