Jacaranda Magic

All illustrations on this page by Megan Forward

Dannika’s debut picture book.

Jacaranda Magic was published by Ford Street Publishing in 2018.

More than a joyful picture book that celebrates beauty in nature & the power of imagination, Jacaranda Magic is a dynamic tool to help parents & educators explore the value of boredom & encourage imaginative outdoor play.

It addresses a trend is emerging from research in early childhood education in Australia, indicating that young children are struggling to develop key creative, imaginative & gross motor skills due to diminishing access to unstructured play outdoors.

Jacaranda Magic was written to encourage children in the critical 4-8 year old age group to get outside and discover all the possibilities that nature offers when playing with objects in their natural settings & using the limitless power of their imaginations.

Distinctly Australian in aesthetic, Jacaranda Magic aims to delight as a story book in itself as well as serve as an important tool to help springboard children off the couch & into nature.

Hardcover & paperback copies of Jacaranda Magic are available, in stock or on order, from all good book shops & online retailers, as well as directly from my online Book Shop below.

Reviews of Jacaranda Magic

Buy the Book

Teacher’s Notes

Jacaranda Magic has been given the royal treatment!

The Duchess of York chose to read Jacaranda Magic on her YouTube Channel, Storytime with Fergie & Friends & had some lovely things to say about this book and its central theme of imaginative play in nature.

May I congratulate you, just completely, on a beautiful book. And not only is it a beautiful book, but to get children to use their imagination...that's the skill.
Well done you.

‘‘

”

SARAH FERGUSON DUCHESS OF YORK – JULY 2022

Jacaranda Magic

A CREATIVE WORKSHOP

Imagination
Creativity

Nature
Play

AGE GROUP Prep - Year 3
Can be adapted to other year levels & adult learning

Working with Jacaranda Magic by Dannika Patterson & Megan Forward as a reference text, participants will learn about the making of a picture book, exercise their imaginations and celebrate nature through story & art.

This highly-engaging workshop encourages children's creativity, love of story, art-appreciation & real-world connection to nature & its seasons.
Using working examples from the making of the picture book Jacaranda Magic, participants will be invited to imagine, hypothesize, problem-solve & get creative.
They'll be shown examples of how flexible thinking and open-ended play can lead to great ideas through an engaging mix of story, science & art.
Curriculum-links built into this workshops include; narrative writing, poetry, science inquiry skills, seasons & weather, eco-systems, growth of trees, chemistry & art (colour-mixing).
Children LOVE the opportunity to learn from and ask questions of the creators of Jacaranda Magic.

This workshop is 100% waste-free, with all materials being either recycled, upcycled or compostable.

♻️

Book a Jacaranda Magic workshop

The rhyming text & the beautifully detailed pictures which hold so much to be discovered make this a perfect book to introduce our children to things they might not have noticed & send them scurrying for answers.

‘‘

”

BARBARA BRAXTON – TEACHER LIBRARIAN

♥️ Book Week ♥️

Jacaranda Magic is a picture book that delightfully captures the beauty of imaginative play & the enchantment that nature so brilliantly provides.

‘‘

KYLIE BUCKLEY

”

Megan Forward

Illustrated by

Megan Forward’s watercolour & charcoal illustrations capture the beauty of the jacaranda & demonstrate the joy of movement. The children depicted in the story are diverse in terms of age, gender & ethnicity.