A John Williamson CD accompanies Freya Blackwood’s interpretation of the iconic Waltzing Matilda (Scholastic, $24.95 hb, 28 pp, 1865048151). In her carefully composed illustrations, Blackwood explores the class struggle between shearers and squatters, thus putting the song in context. Sheet music, articles from newspapers and other historical documents are cleverly integrated into the design. This is a laudable approach and one which should generate much discussion.

Another television personality, Tony Wilson, has written the text for The Thirsty Flowers (Hardie Grant Egmont, $24.95 hb, 48 pp, 1921098279). This is a sumptuously produced book, complete with glitter. However, while the text has a very Australian feel, and the illustrator Julie Knoblock shows great promise, this is not a great picture book. There is an overabundance of clichés in the rhyming text, and the story of a group of European flowers who escape their garden for the well-watered one next door does not sit well in a time of water restrictions. Gordon Reece’s Nog the Nag Bird (Lothian, $27.95 hb, 26 pp, 073440865X) also suffers from being too predictable. It examines the theme of wanting to be like someone else. The cartoon-style illustrations are cleverly executed and well designed, but otherwise un-noteworthy.

Lee Fox and Cathy Wilcox explore the stubbornness of children in the light-hearted Ella Kazoo Will Not Brush Her Hair (Lothian, $27.95 hb, 30 pp, 0734408560). Fox’s text revels in the joys of language, and Wilcox’s Ella has attitude amidst her cascade of curls. While the illustrations are fun, the story fails to enthral, due in part to the predictability of the resolution, but readers will find much to enjoy along the way. Lyn Lee’s Eight (Omnibus, $24.99 hb, 29 pp, 1862914567) also deals with childhood problems – in this case growing up enough not to need the reassurance of a beloved toy. Kim Gamble’s gentle, old-fashioned illustrations lift the story in this amiable book.

Even well-established and talented authors and illustrators seem to be revisiting successful formulas. However, collaboration with a new illustrator or author can often lift a book above the commonplace. Such is the case with the inspired choice of the irreverent Terry Denton to illustrate Mem Fox’s latest offering, A Particular Cow (Viking, $24.95 hb, 32 pp, 0670042315). Fox’s sparse text tells of a particular day when a cow goes for a walk and many unpredictable things happen. Fox introduces each new protagonist and then hands over to Denton’s illustrations. The result is an entertaining romp through the mayhem of a far from ordinary walk.

The same audience is also well served by the collaboration of two of Australia’s best proponents of books for the kindergarten set: Margaret Wild and Deborah Niland. In Chatterbox (Penguin, $24.95 hb, 29 pp, 0670029327), they combine to produce an endearing book which explores the fraught area of speech development. Niland engages the reader with her 1960s palette and her wide-eyed characters, and there is much interactive noise-making to be generated in reading Wild’s text. This is a guaranteed giggle-inducer for the very young.

Gregory Rogers has also returned to familiar ground with The Midsummer Knight (Allen & Unwin, $29.95 hb, 31 pp, 1741145236), which again stars the engaging and expressive Bear. Rogers effortlessly tells the story of how Bear saves the king and queen of a magical land. The endearing character of Bear keeps the reader fully involved right to the end. What need is there for words when you have an artist who understands so well how to communicate visually? Another consummate visual communicator, Graeme Base, has returned to familiar territory with Uno’s Garden (Viking, $29.95 hb, 39 pp, 0670041912). The animals and plants, as well as the humanoids and buildings that inhabit this book, are familiar and yet strikingly different. Base has created an allegory about a world in which the environment takes second place to the city. Using lush illustrations and numerical puzzles, he shows clearly that we should never take the ordinary for granted: one day it may be extraordinary simply because it no longer exists.

In Water Witcher (Little Hare, $24.99 hb, 29 pp, 11921049510), Jan Ormerod has tapped her Australian roots, taking children back to a simpler time, but with a theme very relevant to the present: the search for water. The book exudes the colours of a midsummer Australian landscape – oranges, golds, browns and deepest blues. Powerfully understated, this is a warm family story about how a young boy finds out that there is nothing ordinary about him or his environment.

Like Ormerod, Pamela Allen has returned to the familiar with Grandpa and Thomas and the Green Umbrella (Viking, $24.95 hb, 28 pp, 0670029734). Everything Grandpa does Thomas does, as they share an eventful day at the beach. Allen tenderly portrays the symbiotic relationship between grandparent and grandchild. Between Grandpa and his man-boobs, the enthusiastic Thomas and the rampant umbrella, this is an infectious and beguiling book.

Grandparent–grandchild relations are explored similarly sensitively and movingly in Kestrel (Lothian, $23.95 hb, 28 pp, 0734404905), written by Mark Svendsen, with illustrations by the late Steven Woolman, finished by Laura Peterson. Grandfather and grandson build a wooden rowing boat together for a secret recipient. With high production values, detailed technical drawings of boats, emotive photorealist portraits, watermarked pages and a poetic text, this is a classy example of the craft of picture book making.

The indefatigable Margaret Wild has teamed up with yet another illustrator, Janine Dawson, to produce Bobbie Dazzler (Working Title Press, $24.95 hb, 30 pp, 187628868X). Dawson’s ballistic main character, Bobbie the wallaby, charges across the pages, brought to a standstill only by her inability to do the splits. However, with her exuberant friends’ support she proves that she is indeed a bobby-dazzler. This is a book with bounce, with a quiet underlying message about the importance of friendship.

Australiana is also celebrated in Bushranger Bill (Omnibus, $27.95 hb, 27 pp, 1862915954). The story is simple: Bushranger Bill uses his brains to rescue his wife from the clutches of the wicked Captain Bluff. Drawing on Australian bushranger tales, Megan de Kantzow does not take her subject too seriously in her cheeky text, and it is only through reading Amanda Graham’s pictures that it becomes obvious that the two lovers are actually satin bower birds. The folk tale nature of the story is well matched by the simplified presentation.

Kim Dale’s Moon Bear Rescue (Lothian, $27.95 hb, 34 pp, 0734409389) deals with a much more serious subject. This well-crafted and well-researched book tells the story of a young bear in China that is taken by bile hunters, but escapes and finds sanctuary. The illustrations are wonderfully evocative portraits of bears, but the majority of the narrative is contained in the lengthy and informative text. This is an important story, well told.

The Friends of Apple Street by Anna Pignataro (Lothian, $27.95 hb, 30 pp, 0734409591) has glorious and unusual illustrations. Pignataro uses a naïve style and chaotic compositions to produce a childlike effect which suits this very simple story of the inhabitants of Apple Street. The decorative illustrations are full of characters who directly engage the reader’s eye. Pignataro has produced a book brimful of appeal for children. The Music Tree (Lothian, $27.95 hb, 31 pp, 073440851X), by Catriona Hoy and Adele Jaunn, also has an unusual illustrative style, but in this case with a very European feel. There is a certain darkness to the illustrations, with echoes of fairy tale forests. However, there is a lameness to the ending of this story about how a mother deals with her child’s need to hit things, and the textural illustrations have an aloofness which stops the book from being fully engaging.      It’s Christmas by Tina Burke (Viking, $19.95 hb, 29 pp, 0670070386) also hasa childlike innocence in its illustrations of childhood excitement in the lead-up to Christmas. Burke’s homely tale would verge on the saccharine except for her touching and down-to-earth sense of humour. However, Pemberthy Bear, by Sally Murphy and Jacqui Grantford (New Frontier Publishing, $24.95 hb, 30 pp, 1921042494), does not have this redeeming feature. It is the tale of a bear who just wants to be alone. With its pastel colours, cluttered compositions and painfully smiling toys – apart from the endearing Pemberthy himself – this is a highly conventional story.

However, there are some outstanding works among the latest offerings. Samsara Dog (Working Title Press, $24.99 hb, 33 pp, 1876288620), written and illustrated with dignity and compassion, explores the lives of a dog as he moves through the seven levels of incarnation. Helen Manos’s text is sensitive and lyrical. Julie Vivas cleverly varies colour and composition in the illustrations as she explores the lives of the dog. There are many images that linger in the mind’s eye: a monk cradling a dying puppy, a pink jumble of dog and little girls dressed in tutus, and the final poignant image. This exemplary tale shows how picture books can be so much more than just simple stories for the young.

And sometimes it is possible to celebrate the ordinary and from this celebration produce something extraordinary. This is what Colin Thomson and his fictitious alias ‘Amy Lissiat’ do in Norman and Brenda (Lothian, $27.95 hb, 30 pp, 0734409567). This is a quirky, deliciously dark and very funny story about life’s losers. Thomson presents an nihilistic view of the world, from the graffiti messages on the walls exhorting the protagonists to just give up, to the dull greys and browns of the computer-generated illustrations, to the hopelessness of Norman and Brenda’s lives until they finally find each other. This is postmodern picture book making at its best, with intertextual references galore. This book is brilliant, cringe-making, deliciously funny and incredibly poignant. It has much to teach us about the human condition, and it contains an important message. As Thomson says on the closing page, ordinary people – the Normans and Brendas of this world – do not start wars.

Sometimes ordinariness can work in a picture book, tapping into the common roots we all share: the need to be loved, the need to be heard, the need to have fun, the need to belong and the need to look after where we live. As these picture books show, there is a world of difference between being mediocre and actually celebrating the ordinary.