This Book is Full of Holes

Nora Nickum

Robert Meganck

CSIRO Publishing, 2024

40pp., hbk., RRP $A27.99

 9781486318407

What is a hole?

Is it the place in your sock where your toe peeks through?  Is it the hollow in a gum tree where Mother Galah raises her babies? Or is it the gap in a rock formed over millennia by wave action and which now fascinates as those waves create a spectacular fountain?  Perhaps it is that mysterious place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out.

This book tells us a hole is “a hollow place. An empty space. A part of something where there is nothing at all”. And then goes on to explore and explain a wide range of holes, each with a particular purpose or story to tell in one of the quirkiest but most fascinating books that I have read in a long time.  In the past I’ve engaged students with a unit I called “Why Do I Have Seven Holes in my Head?” but never have I given a hole more than a passing thought, apart from something to mend, walk around or put something in (like tea in the hole in the cup).  Accompanied by illustrations that will make the reader LOL, not only does it explore holes in everything from the everyday to the extraordinary, it also looks at the word in our language, opening up all sorts of places and phrases to investigate.

Present and promote it to the kid who thinks a little differently, whose curiosity is never satisfied, who is looking for something absurd that becomes absorbing and you will be giving them entertainment (and education) for a long time to come. Superb.