The Marvellous Funambulist of Middle Harbour and Other Sydney Firsts (Hilary Bell, illus by Matthew Martin, NewSouth)

Hilary Bell’s first book with Antonia Pesenti, Alphabetical Sydney, was a stylish guide to the city’s lesser-known iconic features (such as T for Terrace houses and F for Frangipanis). The same sense of whimsy informs Bell’s latest book with new collaborator Matthew Martin. Aside from being a bit of a mouthful, The Marvellous Funambulist of Middle Harbour and Other Sydney Firsts revisits Sydney but this time it’s pitched at an older audience. It’s a historical romp for middle-primary schoolers upwards: ‘This is a story of Sydney/In order of who did what first; The incidents, places and people,/All illustrated and versed.’ The information is an odd hodge-podge of unconnected factoids, including details about the first Indigenous Sydneysiders (with handprints carved in a cave), the pistol duel fought by First Fleet surgeons in 1788, the first ferryman to charge a fare, first mother-and-daughter taxidermy business and (as the title alludes to) the first crossing of Middle Harbour by tightrope. The pictures are charming, with a lot of clean white space around the illustrations, and the rhymes work well. However, the random, obscure information, plus the specific setting of Sydney, make this picture book appealing to a limited audience.

Thuy On is a reviewer and books editor of the Big Issue 

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews