OVERTHEFENCE PRESS

reviews

Animals Awake: While You Are Asleep

Reviewed by Barbara James in Magpies Vol. 16 No. 3 p. 23 July 2001
Quality design and presentation highlight the talents of this fine wildlife illustrator. A dozen appealing Australian animals are featured in soft pen and watercolour in full-page illustrations and smaller studies. It is accompanied by a rhyming text in question-and-answer format pitched at the four- to six-year age group: I've a long sticky tongue, and a short toothless snout, I dig with my forepaws to forage ants out, My name is... The answers tend to be on the difficult side: Southern boobook or Yellow-footed antechinus rather than the easier ...owl or ...mouse. At the end of the book are two excellent pages of condensed information about the animals - a useful reference that will extend the book's usefulness to primary school children or to adults. The beautiful illustrations are going to make this book appealing to adults and I noticed that the illustrator's royalties are being donated to wildlife shelters.

Animals Awake: While You Are Asleep

Reviewed by Cathy Oliver in Art Streams p. 23 Nov/Dec 2000
This is a stunning, colourful picture book about Australian animals which are usually active at night. When temperature and food permit they may be spotted during the day. Animals Awake with its simple verse and accurately detailed full-page watercolour illustrations has been refereed by Alan Reid from the Gould League of Victoria and Bryan Walters, a local ecologist. It is engaging, enthralling, educational and beauifully designed. Brief notes and a glossary extend the book for use throughout primary schools, though the book is designed initially with the four- to eight- year-old reader in mind.
Author, Felicity Nottingham and illustrator, Margo Kroyer-Pedersen had much in common. Both were well known for their activities as wildlife carers and were in the habit of sharing their homes with their charges. Some five years ago they collaborated on this book, bringing it to the brink of completion before Kroyer-Pedersen's death brought the project to a halt. It has now been resurrected and Overthefence Press has produced a book of international standard in a highly competitive world of children's publishing.

reviews

Confessions of a Midweek Lady: Tall Tennis Tales
Extract from 'Slicing up midweek ladies' by Natalie Birch, Diamond Valley Leader p. 8
11 July 2001.

Christmas Hills poet Sandy Jeffs doesn't look much of an athlete, but every Wednesday she turns into Martina Navratilova. Jeffs is a 'midweek lady' and this is the day she takes to the court to compete against other women who also turn into tennis champions for a couple of hours each week. Her weekly outings have been the inspiration for her most recent book, Confessions of a Midweek Lady: Tall Tennis Tales, in which she serves up a witty look at the world of midweek tennis and the women who play. The poetry is illustrated with humourous cartoons by Christmas Hills artist and fellow tennis player, Veronica Holland ...
For those familiar with Jeff's poetry, Confessions is a change from her usual style. Her first three books dealt with the often taboo subject of mental illness and domestic violence and were fairly 'dark and heavy'. 'Confessions is a departure - it's fluffy and light,' she said. Considering what she has been through, her keen sense of houmour is all the more remarkable. Jeffs was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 23, soon after completing university. She has spent many periods in hospital, including time in Larundel, and still takes medication. Her first book of poetry, Poems from the Madhouse, gave an insight into what it is like to be schizophrenic. The book came second in the Anne Elder Award and also received a certificate of commendation in the 1994 Human Rights awards.
'It's been a difficult road to travel - it meant that I haven't fulfilled things that I would if I had been allowed to live a normal life.' Jeffs said. 'On the other hand, with my poetry I have risen out of the ashes. That's been a silver lining on a dark cloud.' Earlier this year she was proud to be included among the 250 women on the Centenary of Federation'sWomen Shaping the Nation Honour Roll. Her name appeared alongside Australian legends such as Dame Nellie Melba, Vida Goldstein, Germaine Greer and former Olympic athletes Dawn Fraser and Shirley Strickland. 'It's quite an impresive list,' she said. 'I don't know what I am doing on there. It was a bit of an honour.' The poet was nominated by her publisher for mental health survival and support. Confessions is available from Cottles Bridge publisher, Overthefence Press and many bookstores.

Confessions of a Midweek Lady: Tall Tennis Tales
From Art Streams, Vol. 6, no. 4, September/ October 2001, p. 32.

Christmas Hills poet, Sandy Jeffs has reminded us that good poetry is written to inform and entertain ordinary people, not just academics and aesthetes. She has won many awards and sold lots of books while she was at it. Poems from the Madhouse and Blood Relations,two of her critically acclaimed volumes combined the sometimes horrific themes of schizophrenic madness and domestic violence with the poet's indomitable optimism and irrepressible humour to gain a legion of readers. Jeffs has now published Confessions of a Midweek Lady: Tall Tennis Tales. This time, humour is the mainspring of the poetry. As usual, nothing escapes the writer's gaze and nothing is too devastating to become the subject of humour.
Though it would not appear to be calculated, the three volumes could be read as a book, a prequel and a sequel. Jeff's childhood traumatised by domestic violence, her battle with schizophrenia, and the joys and agonies of midweek tennis which probably help keep the 'madness' at bay can be read as a logical sequence. With the help of illustrations by fellow player, Veronica Holland, the poems analyse the pre-match rituals of Holy Wednesday when the congregation pray at the shrine of Saints Steffi, Evonne and Billie Jean, and the post-match rituals with St Sara Lee. There's the old triumphant battler 'as cunning as her own wine trifle' and the grey haired Trojan who will be coached winless to the grave. We laugh and even cry with a whole range of athletes and others.
When one reads of the desperate efforts of the ladies to challenge the gathering storm or play on in the face of the Ash Wednesday inferno, one is alerted to the underlying psychological necessity of certain trivial pursuits. The poems are funny but they are also much more.