book of the month

Old Drumble is a fantastic book by Jack Lasenby about a little boy named Jack Jackman, Andy the drover and Old Drumble, the smartest drover's dog there ever was. A drover, by the way, is a person who shifts cattle and sheep across roads and paths from field to field.

Old Drumble is written in a quirky and different way with funny chapter titles, descriptive wording and interesting questions thought up by Jack that really make you think - e.g. if his street is flat, then which side is the top and which is the bottom? They have equally interesting answers as well.

The book is about the stories that Andy the drover tells Jack about his best droving dog - Old Drumble. About once every week he'd let Jack help him drive the sheep and cattle down Ward Street, and not a step further! - as his mother always said.

That dog had many adventures - he held the whole river up with his bark, he won the Te Aroha races. He even made cattle walk across a tightrope blindfolded.


I give this book a 9/10 because it has some good laugh