Brim and Fog accompany Albert into the bush where he cuts trees. The surrounds, the wildlife and the life-cycle are described with affinity: ‘For Albert it was like being surrounded by friends and relations, some of them close and confidential, others haughty and a bit superior, some frantic to fill their bellies or, like the grey thrush, harried to exhaustion by a coronet of gaping beaks squalling their hunger.’

Albert finds love and companionship in the natural world. It is the reciprocal care from his animal companion that saves his life after an accident in the bush. Another narrative strand is that of Maria, a young girl dying from cancer, whose enthusiasm for nature echoes that of the author.

The animals in Figaro and Rumba and the Crocodile Cafe by Anna Fienberg, illustrated by Stephen Michael King (Allen & Unwin, $19.99 hb, 96 pp, 9781742373119), are portrayed very differently; they are anthropomorphised as idiosyncratic urban house-dwellers. Figaro is a free-spirited dog and Rumba a rather sad, possibly traumatised cat from Cuba. Friends are important and many of their adventures revolve around them, beginning with their search for bushy-tailed Nate, missing on the river. The format of the book complements the episodic structure of the story. Each chapter tells a story, but they build to a fanciful climax with a Cuban flavour. The book, well designed and produced, with a very generous infusion of King’s whimsical, characterful illustrations, is an ideal gift for five to eight-year-olds. Humour derives mainly from the animals’ eccentricities, such as when they telephone each other from adjoining rooms.

An illustration from Figaro and Rumba and the Crocodile Cafe

Even the chapter headings of Meg McKinlay’s Definitely No Ducks! (Walker Books, $13.95 pb, 111 pp, 9781921977855), such as ‘Dog in a Bog’ and ‘Duck Goes Down’, reveal its humorous intentions. Leila Rudge’s expressive black-and-white line drawings add to the fun, which continues through a most satisfying and unconventional plot, culminating in a climax of innovative but realistic slapstick.

Noah and Abby look after Max, the class duck. The class has worked hard on an Antarctic display for assembly, but, when it is destroyed, the principal decides that there will be ‘definitely no ducks!’ If Max must go the class will lose its beloved teacher, Mrs Melvino, about whom there is an elusive wisp of the fantastic. She has a special bond with the duck, and inspires respect and affection in her students. Her aphorisms about the duck, including ‘He is giving up ... because no one is listening’, could be applied to the children in her class. While Abby practises her perfect sentences, Noah has trouble with public speaking. Their roles are reversed when Abby’s words tumble and Noah uses his knowledge to ad-lib at just the right time. Mrs Melvino realises that people can accept the ordinary more easily than they can the extraordinary.

McKinlay and Rudge offer deep insights with a light touch in Definitely No Ducks! This well constructed story for readers aged about seven to ten years eclipses their earlier Children’s Book Council of Australia Award short-listed book, Duck for a Day (2010).

Another series the début title of which was awarded in the 2011 CBCA awards is Violet Mackerel. This excellent series for young girls, written by Anna Branford and illustrated by Sarah Davis, is of a high standard. The latest title is Violet Mackerel’s Possible Friend (Walker Books, $19.95 hb, 109 pp, 9781921977565). Violet’s mother has married gentle, creative Vincent whom they met at the markets in the first book; the family has now moved to a new house where Violet hopes to befriend the girl next door. She devises the ‘Theory of Swapping Small Things’, and so she leaves a tiny bell in purple tissue paper in the knot-hole in the fence for her neighbour to find. Appropriately, Rose leaves a pink-wrapped parcel in return, along with an invitation. The author and illustrator depict endearing, thoughtful Violet, who is not without natural worries and fears, especially as she prepares a gift for Rose’s flower-themed birthday party, with flair.

The names Rose and Violet also feature in Jacqueline Harvey’s new series for young girls – Clementine Rose. Clementine’s Aunt Violet is a much more formidable and disagreeable character than young Violet Mackerel. In the second book in the series, Clementine Rose and the Pet Day Disaster (Random House, $12.95 pb, 153 pp, 9781742755434), Aunt Violet is expected back from her cruise and Clementine Rose starts school. Brimming with expectation, she rises at four a.m., an hour she didn’t know existed. But like Anna Branford, Harvey is attuned to children’s worries. The beautiful, kind, wise teacher whom Clementine expected is actually the head teacher; her own class teacher is the unsympathetic Mrs Ethel Bottomley. Embarrassed to be caught sticking out her tongue at a bully, Clementine is determined to avoid further humiliation. The shame and powerlessness she feels at being badly treated and not believed makes her ill. In spite of these concerns, the tone of Clementine Rose is uplifting and positive, like an Australian Milly Molly Mandy. Clementine has staunch friends and family, and she adores her teacup pig, Lavender. The eponymous Pet Day is a beacon of anticipation, and the gentle humour throughout the book intensifies in this climactic scene.

Fine teachers feature in a number of these books, including both the English teacher and relief teacher in My Life as an Alphabet by Barry Jonsberg (Allen & Unwin, $14.99 pb, 264 pp, 9781743310977), but classrooms and schools are revealed as battlegrounds. Twelve-year-old Candice Phee is called ‘Essen’ (short for Special Needs) by some students. The teacher has set an assignment: the students have to write twenty-six paragraphs about themselves, each one starting with a letter of the alphabet. Every chapter in this middle-school novel also begins with a letter of the alphabet. Fortunately Candice loves the dictionary, which she is reading alphabetically.

It has thousands of different words and it doesn’t try to tell a story, and fail. It just deals in words for their own sake. It is pure. The only other thing I read is books by Charles Dickens. He has taken many of the trickiest words from the dictionary and put them in an interesting order.

Candice refuses to be labelled (‘I’m me,’ she says). Her eccentric new friend Douglas believes that he is from another dimension, while Candice’s family is almost destroyed following a family tragedy and a perceived betrayal. At one point Candice tries to divorce her parents. She also has a risky secret planned for her thirteenth birthday. Like most of the Australian authors reviewed here, Jonsberg relishes humour and difference and conveys them ably.