Digger Digs Down

By Johanna Bell & Huni Melissa Bolliger
Reviewed by Mia Macrossan

Johanna Bell works in poetry, picture books, podcasts, audio installations and community arts. Her books include Hope is the Thing which won 2024 CBCA Book of the Year, Award for New Illustrator Erica Wagner. Here she has teamed up with Huni Melissa Bolliger, whose illustrative style is very different. Huni says: I love dreaming up new worlds with graphics, experimenting with software to find unique ways to tell stories.

Digger is a scruffy dog of no known breed who loves to dig and dig he does, all the way down to the depths of the earth, until he hits water. Along the way there are memorable images of Digger; upside down with his back legs in the air; ful of joyful abandon going down the giant hole; and raising one floppy flying ear when he hears the call to return. Along the way down there are wonderful things to discover hidden in the soil including a teapot, a horseshoe, a dinosaur skeleton and is that a cat he wakes up?

The joyful, exuberant, energetic illustrations perfectly complement and extend the minimal text which pops on the page in white font. Sometimes you have to turn the book sideways which really impresses the depth of the giant hole dug by Digger. Bell says this is ‘a story about adventure and how, when we discover something we love, and keep on doing it, we’re taken to extraordinary places.’

This total wow of a book is sure to appeal to many young readers and will resonate particularly with all dog lovers.

University of Queensland Press 2024

Johanna Bell

Huni Melissa Bolliger