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January 26th marks the date in which Australians reflect upon our cultural history and celebrate the accomplishments since the first fleet landed on Sydney’s shores in 1788. Here are a select few picture books aimed at providing children with some background knowledge of our beautiful land, flora, fauna and multicultural diversity. There is plenty of […]

Reviewed by Carma Dutra, Picture Book Reviewer for the National Writing for Children Center

Title: I Lost My Kisses
Author: Trudie Trewin
Illustrator: Nick Bland
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Hardcover: 32 pages
Publisher: Orchard Books; 1 edition (January 1, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0545055571
ISBN-13: 978-0545055574

This is a beautiful book with Matilda Rose, a young black and white calf, who loves to give kisses. In fact, she kisses morning and night, hello and goodbye. But one morning she wakes up and cannot find her kisses. This presents a dilemma because her father is coming home soon, and he always asks Matilda Rose to give him a big “smoocheroo.” If Matilda Rose cannot kiss her Daddy hello she will be sad.

Matilda Rose knows what her kisses taste like. “They can be yummy like a chocolaty candy-kiss.” They can also sound like “mwa” but no one has ever seen them. Everyone asks Matilda “What do kisses look like?” Matilda looks in the closet, in the grocery store, behind the milk, but she cannot find them anywhere. I Lost My Kisses has a comforting message with a happy ending that makes children smile. Her simple search begins by asking her mother and continues until she goes to the airport where she is to meet her daddy.

My granddaughter spent a long time looking at the illustrations. Illustrations by Nick Bland are in charcoal sketch with colored highlights and an air of cartoon type graphics. Also, a little yellow chick appears in every picture of the story. At first my granddaughter thought it represented the missing kisses. In fact the last picture of Matilda Rose shows her kissing the little yellow chicken with a “Mwa” sound. Adorable.

About the author: Trudie Trewin’s is a children’s writer from Tropical North Queensland, Australia and I Lost My Kisses is her first picture book of a kiss-loving cow.

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Carma Dutra is a children’s writer. To learn more about her writing and for tips, information, and other resources for children’s writers, visit www.carmaswindow.blogspot.com.