The Pros & Cons of Being a Frog (Scholastic, $26.99 hb, 32 pp, 9781742830636), by Sue deGennaro, is also about two people with different approaches to life. The exuberant narrator enjoys dressing up as an animal, but cannot decide which one is right for him. His friend Camille ­– a reticent girl who often expresses herself in numbers – comes up with the idea of a frog. When they try to make another frog costume for Camille, they end up fighting and Camille goes home in a huff. In this unusual tale, deGennaro uses a minimalist palette, beige paper, sketchy pencil drawings, and small bursts of colour, along with numbers that communicate visually across the page. This is an insightful take on role play and friendship.

It’s a Miroocool! (Little Hare Books, $24.95 hb, 32 pp, 9781921541018), by Christine Harris and Ann James, explores one child’s obsession with an iconic childhood ‘imaginary friend’. Audrey – determined to make sure the Tooth Fairy finds her, even though she lives in the outback – leaves letters, footprints, arrows, and trails for her. Despite the fact that the harsh outback climate undoes all of Audrey’s hard work, there is a happy ending, which is indeed a ‘miroocool’. Ann James’s illustrations animate Harris’s cheeky cumulative tale. Feisty Audrey strides across the pages in loose-lined illustrations that burst with energy. Together, James and Harris provide convincing character studies of the Australian rural landscape and those who live in it, while also capturing the enthusiasms of childhood.

In Ten Tiny Things (Fremantle Press, $24.95 hb, 36 pp, 9781921888946), Meg McKinlay champions the need for children to experience the world firsthand. Every day, Tessa and Zachary are driven to school in a shiny machine. One day the machine breaks down and the children have to walk. They soon discover that there is a whole world out there that they had been missing. Succinct sentences, alliteration, and rhythm give McKinlay’s story a folk-tale feel, and this is mirrored in Kyle Hughes-Odgers’s distinctive illustrations. His muted palette, beetle-like people, and abstract backdrops echo Native American and European folk art. They may not be to everyone’s taste, but they certainly provide an extra dimension to this well-crafted fable.

The heroine of Emma Allen’s The Terrible Suitcase (Omnibus Books, $24.99 hb, 32 pp, 9781862919402) is definitely not a happy little girl. Her mother has bought her a boring suitcase for her first day at school rather than the rocket-decorated backpack she desperately wanted. At school her fears are confirmed when she finds she is the only one without a backpack, and so she hides in the cardboard box in the Imagination Corner and won’t come out. One by one, her friends join her inside the box, and she discovers that, with just a little imagination, her ‘terrible’ suitcase has all sorts of possibilities. Allen convincingly gets inside the head of her small protagonist,  while Freya Blackwood’s fluid and expressive illustrations bring to life the children’s imaginary world. This is a charming book that goes to the heart of the power of the imagination to alleviate the childhood fear of being different.

Children’s imaginations will definitely be stretched when ‘reading’ the wordless picture book The Red Wheelbarrow (University of Queensland Press, $19.95 hb, 56 pp, 9780702249259), by Briony Stewart. Small watercolour vignettes on white pages feature in this simultaneous telling of two stories. On each left-hand page, a family of chickens forage and fight for worms, while on the right-hand page two girls in a red wheelbarrow share lollies and laughter, hide under a blanket, fight and fall out, and finally make up. There is a great dynamic between the siblings, but this unusually long picture book may challenge a young audience. While The Red Wheelbarrow is a sweet tale about the small joys of life, the competing narratives and the length of the book reduce its overall appeal.

In Alex and the Watermelon Boat(Allen & Unwin, $29.99 hb, 32 pp, 9781743310076), Chris McKimmie provides a child’s perspective on the traumatic Brisbane floods of February 2011. Just as Alex’s mum warns him not to go outside, his toy rabbit falls out the window. Alex sets off to rescue him, quixotically floating along in half a water-melon. He observes the chaos of the flooded streets, with people and animals perched on rooftops, and flotsam and jetsam floating past. McKimmie’s eclectic style captures the chaos, as he mixes paintings, pencil drawings, and cut-outs to evoke a world in turmoil. There is darkness in this book, but also humour and irreverence, solace and hope. McKimmie continues to produce original, visually interesting, and quirky books that provide insights into what it is to be a child.

Julie Hunt’s The Coat (Allen & Unwin, $29.99 hb, 32 pp, 9781741146059) is an imaginative take on a traditional tale. A coat is disgruntled to find itself adorning a scarecrow, so when a man slouches past, the coat catches his attention and convinces him to put it on. They set out on an adventure that takes them to the Café Delitzia where, channelling the coat’s past life, the man plays the accordion and sings to an appreciative audience. Both the coat and the man are transformed by the experience. Hunt’s story is told in rich, studied language, while the inimitable Ron Brooks uses fluid lines, elongated figures, and saturated colours. There are elements of both Brueghel and Chagall in his European-inspired illustrations. This idiosyncratic, elegantly presented tale will appeal to a more sophisticated audience of older readers.

Margaret Wild’s Tanglewood(Omnibus Books, $26.99 hb, 32 pp, 9781862915701) is also about the transformative powers of companionship. Tanglewood is a tree growing on a small island in the middle of the ocean. It tries to entice seals and dolphins to visit, but they will not come. As the tree stands alone and unloved, it begins to wither. But then a lost seagull takes refuge in it, and the tree revives. When the seagull returns to its family, Tanglewood is once again alone and despondent. However, a year later a host of seagulls appear, each bearing seeds to plant on the island. Wild’s text is finely structured and poetic, and her anthropomorphised tree symbolises the very human emotions of loneliness and longing. Vivienne Goodman’s photorealistic artwork emphasises the tree’s isolation. Her palette reflects the natural environment, and she positions framed portraits of the tree on a background of atmospheric skies and seas, interspersed with dramatic double-page landscapes. This moving book highlights the rich imaginative worlds offered by Australian picture books.