1. Alliteration
2. Alphabet
3. Art
4. Art techniques
5. Australia
6. Book design
7. Communication
8. Creativity
9. Humour
10. Language
11. Visual literacy

From seagulls circling Sydney Harbour Bridge to dingoes dozing near Uluru, Maree Coote takes readers on a dazzling tour of iconic Australian places, landmarks, flora and fauna through the imaginative use of typography, graphic design and vibrant colour in this eye-catching picture book. The simple rhyming text poses a challenge to find the letters that comprise the name of featured elements in the digitally rendered letter art illustrations. Each page has a letter ‘key’ which shows the exact letters and fonts that have been used to create each image. Repeated patterns using serif and san-serif fonts in upper and lower case, regular, bold, italic and script form pictures for primary students to pore over and hone their letter-recognition, spelling, and observation skills, and offer secondary students an inspiring and engaging exercise in graphic design.

A loose collection of rhyming posers without any narrative structure, the text skips from spread to spread, highlighting animals that are representative of each state including quokkas, crocodiles, koalas, highly stylised portraits of notable Australians, Dame Nellie Melba and Albert Namatjira and remote, rural and urban landscapes. ‘Look and find these letter shapes in hills and fields and vines and grapes,’ an arresting double-page spread of South Australia’s Barossa Valley in vibrant viridian, cerise, lime and purple is composed of clusters of the letter “O” forming bunches of grapes hanging from bolded black letter “Y” vineyard trellis as they are being visited by buzzing “B”-shaped bugs. Occasional quirky pairings with humorous innuendos such as screeching galahs flying past Parliament House will amuse older readers.

Brief notes at the end of the book offer succinct explanations of letter art and typography as well as descriptions of a selection of the Australian elements featured throughout. Links to teachers’ notes are also provided.

1. Magpies Talking About Books For Children. v.34, p.28, May 2019 Russ Merrin reviews Letters From Australia by Maree Coote. http://www.melbournestyle.com.au/MAGPIES%20Review_LFOZ.pdf
2. Kids’ Book Review, 4 April 2019 Penny Harrison reviews Letters From Australia by Maree Coote. http://www.kids-bookreview.com/2019/04/review-letters-from-australia.html
3. Maree Coote website http://www.melbournestyle.com.au/MAREE_COOTEabout.html
4. What is Typography? Flux Academy website 2022 https://www.flux-academy.com/blog/what-is-typography
5. The History of Typography Animated Short created by Ben Barrett-Forrest 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOgIkxAfJsk