Who’s smart, naughty, loves playing tricks, loud, and always ready to rock and roll?
Meet the sulphur-crested cockatoos—the wild gang on our street! These Aussie icons have been around for millions of years, and they’re here to steal the show. With their punky hair, cheeky attitudes, and love for fun, they’re more than just birds—they’re part of our national identity.
In this engaging narrative non-fiction picture book, award-winning author Susanne Gervay brings to life the antics, intelligence, and social bonds of these beloved birds. Combining storytelling with real facts, this book is on the K-3 Australian national curriculum for Australian birds and social-emotional learning. It highlights values of equality, inclusion, no bullying, and loyalty, reflecting the best of what we teach our children.
With vibrant illustrations and energetic storytelling, this book will have young readers laughing, learning, and looking at cockatoos in a whole new way!
Who’s The Gang on Our Street? – A Celebration of Cockatoos and Community
Who’s The Gang on Our Street? is a vibrant narrative non-fiction picture book that combines fun storytelling with fascinating facts to introduce young readers to the cheeky antics and social values of sulphur-crested cockatoos. Designed to delight and educate, it is part of the K-3 Australian national curriculum for Australian birds, blending creative imagery with real-world information.
Cockatoos are more than just lively, loud, and playful birds—they have strong social bonds, a sense of fairness, and a unique way of interacting with their world. This book highlights their inclusive social structure, where equality, loyalty, and no bullying are the norm—values that resonate deeply with young readers and align with social and emotional learning principles.
A Fun and Educational Read
In Who’s The Gang on Our Street?, kids form their own tight-knit gang, playing together in their neighborhood. But they’re not the only gang around! High above, another crew watches—a gang of sulphur-crested cockatoos! With their spiky yellow crests, playful tricks, and love for adventure, these birds are as full of personality as the kids themselves.
Susanne Gervay’s storytelling effortlessly transitions between the human gang and the cockatoo gang, showing their similarities in teamwork, fun, and friendships. Throughout the book, readers embark on a scavenger hunt alongside the kids, following the cockatoos’ antics and discovering more about these beloved Australian birds.
The book also explores an important conservation message—cockatoos aren’t just mischievous troublemakers tipping over bins or playing with bubblers. They’re looking for food in a changing environment. Under Australia’s Wildlife Act of 1975, cockatoos are protected, and this book encourages readers to understand their behaviors and take action—like planting more native trees to support them.
Why This Book Stands Out
Susanne Gervay is an award-winning Australian author, celebrated for her insightful and socially conscious booksthat resonate with readers of all ages. She is internationally recognised for her commitment to youth literature that fosters inclusion, empathy, and social awareness. Through her books, she engages young people in important discussions on multiculturalism, disability, environmental awareness, and kindness.
Her book Who’s The Gang on Our Street? is a fun, fact-filled picture book that celebrates Australia’s most playful birds—the sulphur-crested cockatoos. With their wild crests, cheeky attitudes, and noisy personalities, these birds form a gang in the sky, mirroring the friendships and playful mischief of the kids on the street below. Blending narrative non-fiction with humour and real-world facts, the book introduces children to the intelligence, social bonds, and environmental challenges faced by native Australian wildlife.
With her signature storytelling and ability to weave real-world issues into engaging, relatable tales, Susanne Gervay inspires young readers to appreciate nature, understand wildlife conservation, and celebrate the diverse communities—both human and feathered—that make up their world.
Nancy Bevington is an energetic, multifaceted visual artist. Her artistic career spans over three decades, working in painting, illustration and concept creation and execution. Picture books are one of her real passions. Using her many styles and techniques she has the ability to interpret the written word and bring a story to life.
Sulphur Crested Cockatoos are endearing, mischievous, highly intelligent personalities of the Australian bird world. They are comical, they have rhythm and can dance, mimic, and perform to entertain us and each other. They are the subject of an enchanting picture book by author Susanne Gervay, dynamically illustrated by Nancy Bevington.
Cockatoos like company–they gather as Susanne Gervay cleverly describes it, in gangs. It’s a clever and apt analogy because of the way in which these cheeky, irreverent cockatoos gang up to cause mischief. Who’s the Gang on our Street, draws children into the dynamic, energetic world of our sulphur crested cockatoos. On each page, a cockatoo is shown following the actions of the children—playing, racing, dancing, balancing, hanging upside down, teaching each other new tricks, and eating food that they find delicious. The group of friends set off on a quest to discover a local gang of cockatoos that live in their neighbourhood. The final pages in this book has facts about sulphur crested cockatoos followed by a quiz for young readers to test their knowledge.
Educational and entertaining this is a great story for young readers which generates interest in, and provides a fun way, to learn about these amazing Australian birds.
Highly recommended picture book.
For those whose neighbourhood calm is often shattered, whose heads are occasionally clobbered with plummeting missiles, and whose picnic victuals are frequently raided, this book is for you.
Who’s The Gang On Our Street? by Susanne Gervay and Nancy Bevington attempts to answer the conundrum of exactly who is responsible for this cacophony of cheeky chaos?
It’s a joyful new picture book that explores a typical suburban cul-de-sac (I got Neighbour’s vibes but it could be a location found in any Australian city) and the gang of troublemakers that co-exist alongside a troop of neighbourhood kids.
Said eclectic group of friends have their own garage band, coincidentally named ‘The Gang’ and share busy days together kicking around soccer balls, racing billycarts, and sharing sweet delights. Typical run-wild, spirit-filled kid play. But this new ‘gang’ has them bamboozled. Who is it that is challenging their funky-punky urge to play and scream with glee?
Gervay’s narrative is a delightful answer-the-riddle-set up with teasing inquisitive lines that jiggle and dance across the pages to a backdrop Bevington’s colourful images. Each spread makes a comparative statement that invites readers to ‘look and search’ for the answer. Hints are secreted in each and every spread, giving readers, young and old alike, plenty of ooh and ahh, giggly moments.
The result is a riot of fun. And the answer to this mystery? Well, it’s a squawky, gorgeous final full spread reveal that invites even more delight. Not only does this picture book celebrate one of Australia’s best known but maybe under-appreciated native birds, the good old Sulphie, better known as the Sulphur Crested Cockatoo, it cleverly draws playful parallels between rumbustious pre and primary schoolers and cheeky cockies. These comparisons elicit joie de vie whilst embedding a deeper understanding and appreciation for this very intelligent species of bird. A fully illustrated Fun Facts page explains and then tests new knowledge at the end of the book rounding off an informative yet entertaining experience.
Picture book homage has been paid to other less well understood birds including the much-maligned Bin Chicken aka Straw Necked Ibis so it’s a welcome relief to see the raucous Sulphie showcased so enthusiastically. Who’s The Gang On Our Street? is a tribute befitting many of the amazing attributes of the sulphur crested cockatoo and our exuberant Australian way of life suggesting this is one gang we can live with more harmoniously.
