Penny Macoun’s debut picture storybook, Gorkle, imagines what it would be like if Cyber Space were a real place, where gremlins can access text messages from Earth and squirrel them away for their own enjoyment.
When three-eyed gremlin, Gorkle, starts intercepting text messages and stops them reaching their intended recipients, Earthling intervention becomes inevitable. A pair of humans come to investigate, and Gorkle realises that, for the sake of earthly communications, some kind of compromise will need to be reached.
Gorkle is a charming, humorous and vividly illustrated story that explores themes of communication, technology and friendship. It will be an ideal prompt for home and classroom discussions about technological developments and the problems that can arise from them. It will also stimulate young minds to think more deeply about technologies that we all take for granted, and to ask questions about how they work and what our lives would be like without them.
Highly recommended.
ISBN 978-0-6488372-0-6
Available at Amazon AU, Booktopia and by order at all good bookshops.