Kids into books - Comes Naturally

This weeks title - Comes Naturally

Author: David Hill

Illustrator: Trevor Pye

Publisher: Mallinson Rendel, $15.95

Age group: 9-12 years



Flax, raupo, cabbage trees, clumpy little shrubs grew thickly. A faint track wound into them. Water glinted ahead.

Jake followed the track. He wasn't sure what he was after, but he wanted to see the small birds again. The track curved around a bush.

WHIRRRR! A shape rocketed upwards, right in front. Jake yelled, leaped sideways, almost fell into a flax bush. Honking and quacking, the bird flapped away across the swamp.

'You stupid jerk!' Jake jumped again as a voice spoke from the other side of the flax. 'You frightened it!'

Blue eyes glared at him. The sitting figure held a notebook. Binoculars lay beside her.

Aw no! Jake groaned. Not Amy Preston!

'I FRIGHTENED it?' Jake said. 'What'd it do to me?'

'It's a Shoveller Duck,' Amy told him. 'They're really timid. Come along here, so it doesn't think we're after its nest.'

The girl's stocky legs moved quietly through the long grass, between two bushes, past a row of small cabbage trees.

'What's the name of those ones?' Jake pointed to a group of the greeny-yellow birds fussing on a cabbage tree branch. 'Greenfinches. Why? You planning on chucking stones at them?'