For millions of years, dedicated kiwi parents have worked together to successfully produce, incubate, and hatch their chicks. Relative to their size, kiwi females produce one of the largest eggs in the world. After laying, they are so exhausted, the females need to leave the nest and rebuilt their strength. This is where Mr Kiwi steps, his important job is to sit on the nest for the next 80 days until the chick hatches.
Mr Kiwi Has An Important Job celebrates our national emblem and one of Aotearoa's best loved birds.
Author and illustrator Heather Hunt is part of Backyard Kiwi, a community recovery and pest control project at Whangārei Heads. Her passion for conservation, and our feathered friends the kiwi, shines through in this beautiful picture book.
It is a charming and informative story about how kiwi parents job-share and co-parent their chicks. The poetic rhyming text paired with Hunt's expressive illustrations make this a book to treasure. It is a fabulous read-aloud, and one that informs and inspires. The spare text and simple short sentences make it a fun one to question readers too as the book slowly unfolds. It sparked imagination and wonder - what is Mr Kiwi's important job? Why is Mrs Kiwi eating so much? What would happen is he was late?
The book offers younger readers insights into the kiwi's reproductive process, diet, habitat and behaviour of our national bird.
Hunt's stylised and simplistic, yet detailed and haunting, illustrations echo those from one her other books, Kiwi - The Real Story. Both kiwi books would be ideal for a classroom or art class - not only because they are packed full of information, but her drawings would inspire even the littlest of artists.
A simply beautiful book that will inspire and inform our youngest generation about our national treasure.
Reviewer: Rebekah Fraser
Potton and Burton, RRP $19.99