‘Your family is okay’: Bernadette Green on ‘Who’s Your Real Mum?’
Thursday, 6 February 2020
Who's Your Real Mum? (Scribble, illus by Anna Zobel) is the debut picture book from Bernadette Green, inspired by the real-life questions her own children have been asked about their...
Taking Down Evelyn Tait (Poppy Nwosu, Wakefield)
Thursday, 6 February 2020
Lottie is 16 and loves black metal, collecting curious words and making trouble, so her transformation into a goody two-shoes surprises herself as much as anyone else. But Lottie is...
Backyard Birds (Helen Milroy, Fremantle Press)
Thursday, 6 February 2020
Helen Milroy is a descendant of the Palyku people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Born in Perth, she has always had a passionate interest in health and wellbeing,...
Beautiful Eggs (Alice Lindstrom, Scribble)
Wednesday, 22 January 2020
In this board book, Melbourne-based artist and illustrator Alice Lindstrom uses her stunning cut-paper style of illustration to introduce the tradition of egg decoration across a number of cultures around...
All Bodies are Good Bodies (Charlotte Barkla, Little Hare)
Thursday, 12 December 2019
All Bodies Are Good Bodies is a rhyming picture book that champions bodies of all shapes and sizes. Charlotte Barkla’s words are written to be read out loud as one...
The Long Distance Playlist (Tara Eglington, HarperCollins)
Thursday, 12 December 2019
Tara Eglington’s The Long Distance Playlist is a touching depiction of a long-distance friendship and blossoming romance. Taylor is an ex-snowboarding prodigy slowly coming to terms with his recent amputation,...
Beetle and Boo (Caitlin Murray, Puffin)
Friday, 8 November 2019
Beetle is not scared of anything. Monsters? Ghosts? Bad dreams? Wild storms and cracking thunder and lightning? Nope. Uh-uh. Not ever. Caitlin Murray’s Beetle and Boo is a story of...
The Girl with the Gold Bikini (Lisa Walker, Wakefield)
Friday, 8 November 2019
Lisa Walker’s second YA novel gives us a fun new spin on Nancy Drew and ‘girl detectives’. It will absolutely appeal to readers who love the mystery genre, with a...
A New Kind of Everything (Richard Yaxley, Scholastic)
Friday, 8 November 2019
A New Kind of Everything picks up the story of the Gallagher family after the loss of patriarch Barney, his spectre still looming large over his wife Allison and their...
Euphoria Kids (Alison Evans, Echo)
Friday, 8 November 2019
Euphoria Kids is a tender, contemporary fairytale about magic, friendship and gender identity. A departure from the horror elements of Alison Evans’ previous novels, this book focuses on the wonder...
Coming Home to Country (Bronwyn Bancroft, Little Hare)
Friday, 8 November 2019
This picture book is bathed in a ‘palette of leaf green, red rust, yellow ochre, deep blue and crimson’ as the unnamed narrator returns home, back to Country. Bronwyn Bancroft’s...
Morphing Murphy (Robert Favretto, illus by Tull Suwannakit, Ford Street)
Friday, 8 November 2019
Murphy is a happy tadpole, quite content with his life eating algae and rotting water plants all day. So happy that he wouldn’t change a thing … until he slowly...
Jelly-Boy (Nicole Godwin, illus by Christopher Nielsen, Walker Books)
Friday, 8 November 2019
In this deceptively simple story, a jellyfish falls in love with a plastic bag, having assumed that it’s a fellow jellyfish. The book’s aim is to teach children about the...
Evie and Pog: Take Off! (Tania McCartney, HarperCollins)
Friday, 8 November 2019
Six-year-old Evie and her best friend Pog the pug live in a treehouse next to obsessively tidy Granny Gladys’ house. Evie is accident-prone, wildly enthusiastic about the world, and enjoys...
Emergency Rescue Angel (Cate Whittle, Scholastic)
Friday, 8 November 2019
Mitch is rudderless and lonely after the death of his dad and the upheaval of his best mate across the country. Max is a goth angel—an Emergency Rescue Angel, to...
Me and My Boots (Penny Harrison, illus by Evie Barrow, Little Hare)
Friday, 8 November 2019
Author Penny Harrison exemplifies the beauty in nature and the power of self-expression through her books, which include The Art Garden, Dance with Me and Emily Green’s Garden. Her latest...
Dream team: Emily Rodda & Marc McBride on ‘The Glimme’
Friday, 8 November 2019
Author Emily Rodda and illustrator Marc McBride’s working relationship has spanned nearly 20 years, starting with the first ‘Deltora Quest’ book. Now, the pair are back with a new middle-grade...
State of euphoria: Alison Evans on ‘Euphoria Kids’
Friday, 8 November 2019
Reviewer Jordi Kerr says Alison Evans’ YA novel Euphoria Kids (Echo, February) is ‘a tender, contemporary fairytale about magic, friendship and gender identity’ that follows three trans kids ‘learning to...
The Wonderful Wisdom of Ants (Philip Bunting, Scholastic)
Tuesday, 15 October 2019
Ants. What exactly do these tiny, easily overlooked creatures have to teach us? Quite a bit, according to Philip Bunting, whose picture book is funny and informative as he goes...
Extraordinary! (Penny Harrison, illus by Katie Wilson, New Frontier)
Tuesday, 15 October 2019
What a magical book this is! In Extraordinary! Penny Harrison, author of Emily Green’s Garden and Dance With Me, and New Zealand-based illustrator Katie Wilson take the reader on a...
The Threads of Magic (Alison Croggon, Walker)
Tuesday, 15 October 2019
This first foray by Alison Croggon—best known for her ‘Pellinor’ fantasy series—into middle-grade is a sophisticated story of power, friendship and magic. The city of Clavel is in a medieval-style...
Ready, Set, Code! (Heather Catchpole & Nicola O’Brien, CSIRO Publishing)
Tuesday, 15 October 2019
Ready, Set, Code! teaches computer programming skills to kids aged 8–12 using the open source Scratch language created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This book presents introductory programming concepts...
The Secrets of Magnolia Moon (Edwina Wyatt, illus by Katherine Quinn, Walker)
Thursday, 3 October 2019
The Secrets of Magnolia Moon is the first middle-grade novel from Edwina Wyatt, who has been twice listed as a CBCA notable author for her work in picture books. Magnolia...
No Place for an Octopus (Claire Zorn, UQP)
Thursday, 3 October 2019
This is Claire Zorn’s first picture book and it comes as rather a surprise—she is well known as an author of novels for young adults, for which she has won...
Paddy T and the Time-travelling Trampoline (Adam France, illus by Zahra Zainal, A&U)
Thursday, 3 October 2019
Paddy’s just an average 12-year-old. He lives with his mum and dad, his older sister Nina, brother Troy and baby sister Bella. His best mate at school is Marty. He’s...
I See, I See (R Henderson, A&U)
Thursday, 3 October 2019
This extremely clever book will be loved by kids, who will want to turn it upside down to read it again as soon as they finish it—and it will be...
Three (Stephen Michael King, Scholastic)
Thursday, 3 October 2019
Stephen Michael King is an accomplished picture book writer and illustrator, with award-winning books such as Rainbow Bear, Mutt Dog! and Leaf just a selection of his publications. This book...
Antarctica (Moira Court, Fremantle Press)
Thursday, 3 October 2019
This picture book by artist and author Moira Court has a distinctive visual style that makes it stand out from other books for readers aged three to five. Exploring the...
Nop (Caroline Magerl, Walker)
Thursday, 3 October 2019
Nop is a teddy bear who is ‘not plush in places’. He waits patiently to be bought from Oddmint’s Dumporeum, a magical sort of toy shop, but to no avail....
Scaling new heights: H M Waugh on ‘The Lost Stone of SkyCity’
Thursday, 5 September 2019
H M Waugh’s middle-grade fantasy The Lost Stone of SkyCity (Fremantle Press, October) is set in the mountainous worlds of the Dirt and the Ice. Reviewer Catherine Moller spoke to...
