English / New Zealand
Uncle Trev and his whistling bull
Lasenby, Jack
(text)
Wellington: Gecko, 2012. – 207 p.
ISBN 978-1-877467-15-8
Storytelling | Tall tale
Reading age: 6+
White Ravens issue: 2013
Due to some illness, the young first-person narrator of this book is confined to his bed for great lengths at a time. It is the 1930s, and therefore distraction in the form of computer games, Internet, and the like is not yet available; so the boy is eagerly waiting for Uncle Trev to turn up. Unfortunately, his resolute mother is far from keen on Uncle Trev and his larger-than-life tall tales that feature Trev’s new bull Hubert, who can whistle, his neighbour Gotta Henry, or the family of elephants who moved into the old farm down the road. Told in short chapters always ending with the mother’s return to the house and Uncle Trev’s hurried escape, this collection of absurd tales, written in a tongue-in-cheek voice, underlines the importance of the tradition of storytelling.