Clap hands for a classic Kiwi singalong

This singalong book is a fun Kiwi version of the popular children’s song ‘If You’re Happy And You Know It’, which also includes a CD of the song performed by well-known New Zealand entertainer, Pio Terei, in English and te reo Maori.

Throughout the book, readers are invited to sing along with the lyrics and to perform the unique poses struck by the animals.

Publisher, Scholastic NZ, approached Stevie with the draft song and suggestions on the actions for the lead animals in each scene. The next stage was to figure out the composition for each scene, and in particular how to accommodate land and marine animals together.

‘One of the most challenging aspects was working out the animal poses when they’re trying to follow the movement of each scenes,’ says Stevie. ‘Some are easy, like showing animals singing or strutting, but others are tricky. I mean, how do you draw something like a fish kicking? They don’t even have feet.’

‘I’m glad the people at Scholastic gave me a lot of freedom while working on this book, even though sometimes they had to remind me not to go too far - like having swimming birds, for example.’

He ended up drawing more than 100 animals for the book. ‘That’s practically a whole Zoo!’

But the volume of drawings hasn’t put him off doing another animal book, he says. Though it would be good to stick to one species. ‘Hopefully the next book will be all about dogs.’