Antarctic Dad

Hazel Edwards (text)

Kevin Burgemeestre (illus)

Lothian Books, Australia: 2006

ISBN: 0734408501

Genres: picture book, realistic fiction

Issues: family, separation

When a boy's father spends a season in Antarctica, his mother and teacher use electronic technology and a little bit of creative thinking to ease the child's sadness.

Tracking Dad's experiences on a ‘wildlife map', digital photographs of a toy kangaroo lent to him for the expedition, and lots of reading and research allow the boy to feel close to his absent parent, as well as sharing facts about Antarctica with the reader.

This is an informative book that is thought-provoking on both personal and environmental levels. Although the use of a different, blue-coloured font for Dad's emails is an effective way of giving this ‘off screen' character a voice, a stronger emotional connection with the story would be possible if the protagonists had names.

The illustrations focus principally on the child's experiences - at school, in his room at home, his birthday without Dad. Flaps on the right hand side of most double page spreads provide ‘snapshots' of Dad's Antarctic experience, placed against lined blue paper suggestive of a photo album. The rough brush strokes give the pictures a sense of energy and movement, as do the intense colours used. The human characters tend to lack subtleties of expression, a pity as it restricts the emotional subtext that would otherwise have been possible.