By Kristin Martin & Nicky Johnston

Reviewed by Lara Cain Gray

With the competing pressures of busy lives and a crowded school curriculum, some commentators are saying it has never been more important to foster the soft skills associated with literacy in our young people, like creative play. Where Shall We Travel Today? is a celebration of making the ordinary extraordinary in that special way that children can, where the only limit is their imagination.

It’s the summer holidays, and the neighbourhood kids have big plans. Summer is for adventures! They will snorkel through coral reefs, visit Antarctica, swing with monkeys and sail beneath Niagara falls – and still be home by bedtime. This book does what picture books do best, with the words and pictures carrying equal weight in the storytelling. As lyrical language tells us the children are diving with giant rays and turtles, the illustrations show us the backyard paddling pool being messily filled by a hose. Jungle vines and a jungle gym combine across one spread; camels deliver weary travellers to a pyramid pile in the sandpit. There are ice blocks and dress ups and makeshift cubbies, shared by a diverse friendship group moving in and out of each other’s backyards.

Kristin Martin is an author, poet and primary teacher, who was inspired to write this story after observing students interacting with the natural world. Nicky Johnston is a prolific creator, whose soft, pastel colour palette in this book helps to blur the line between the real and the imaginary. The endpapers show a silhouette of the group of friends looking out towards a rising, or setting, sun as if planning the next adventure.

This book is recommended for readers 3+ who enjoy light, playful, inventive stories.

 MidnightSun Publishing 2025 

Kristin Martin 

Nicky Johnston