Every child deserves an armful of Lester's bewitching books. Her newest is beguiling as ever, an autobiographical account of growing up on an Australian ranch "overlooking the sea", where a wombat snoozed next to the stove and yo might find your very own pony grazing in the orchard.

Love it. Love that the farm in Australia has a lot in common with a ranch in Nevada - but we can't round up our cattle along the beach of the ocean. Looks like dry non-fiction, with each page being an illustrated list of things that happen that season, but Lester, as usual, brings charm and life so that the details are engaging. ( )

This book covers farm life in Australia, and the experiences of a family and their activities on the farm. The story follows a child in the family, and all of his adventures. The child's jobs, relationships with the animals, and other responsibilities that come with farm life. The illustrations were charming, and intermittently blocked off throughout the book, separate from the text. The book was a bit long for my pre-kindergarten children, but I think exposing them to books with slightly more text than appropriate can be a good thing. I don't want them to fear books with plenty of text in the future. I also like to challenge their attention spans from time to time, to get them ready for kindergarten and the primary grades. The story ends with the child getting his own pony, which was a sweet way to end the book since many children dream of owning their own horse. The seasons are addressed, which is always difficult to explain to children in New Orleans. I liked having pictures to help me explain, and text to support those ideas. I think this book does a good job of providing enough detail about farm life for urban children/audiences.

This book gives a lot of details about life on a farm from a child's perspective. It also goes through the change of seasons and the differences that happen on the farm. It's a nice book but not one I would seek out to use with students. ( )