Pearlie is a park fairy on a mission. She's a very organised fairy who's just a little bit bossy. When she writes a list of daily chores for the possums, spiders, ducks and frogs who live in the park (just in case they don't know what to do) she leaves the rats off the list - but, of course, rats are naughty fringe-dwellers and nobody in this story cares about them much. The rats feel left out, so they play a joke on the other park residents, completely upsetting the 'normal' order of things. Pearlie then intimidates the rats into making amends. Demonising of rats aside, Mike Zarb's accompanying illustrations are definitely worth a mention. They are vibrant, bright and wrought in a style reminiscent of 1960s cell animation. The size and format of the book would indicate that it's intended for early independent readers. One may wonder, however, at Harmer's less than elegant sentence lengths. Overall, the story of Pearlie is disappointingly slight and shallow. With its pink sparkly cover, this book will appeal to the fairy-obsessed. Of course, the celebrity status of the writer will help sell it to grown-ups.

Jane Watson-Brown is a writer and reviewer. C. 2003 Thorpe-Bowker and contributors

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

Tags: wendy harmer