Gus and the Missing Boy (Troy Hunter, Wakefield)
Tuesday, 30 January 2024
Gus Green is his injured mother’s primary carer after she was involved in a car accident; he is also gay and overweight. A true crime fanatic with aspirations of one...
Joy Moody Is Out of Time (Kerryn Mayne, Bantam)
Tuesday, 30 January 2024
For two decades, Cassiopeia (Cassie) and Andromeda (Andie) Moody have understood their destiny. They are special, chosen and kept safe, spending most of their lives within the confines of their Melbourne home,...
Unique: What autism can teach us about difference, connection and belonging (Jodi Rodgers, Hachette)
Tuesday, 30 January 2024
Neurodiversity commentary often references the double empathy problem, the concept that (put simply) neurodivergent–neurotypical communication can be more challenging than communication between people with the same neurotype. A related concept—neurodivergent...
My Heart (Katrina McKelvey, illus Deb Hudson, EK Books)
Tuesday, 30 January 2024
My Heart by Katrina McKelvey is a picture book about a loving mother–child relationship. The mother character reflects on her feelings while pregnant, after birth and as she watches her...
Kin: Family in the 21st century (Marina Kamenev, NewSouth)
Tuesday, 30 January 2024
While women’s rights over their bodies continue to be depleted in the United States, Kin: Family in the 21st century presents the history of a related struggle: the right to...
Alphabetter (Maura Pierlot, illus Jorge Garcia Redondo, Affirm)
Tuesday, 30 January 2024
Alphabetter: A Better You and Me, from A to Z is a new educational picture book from Affirm Press, which published the popular Life Lessons for Little Ones series. Written by...
To The River (Vikki Wakefield, Text)
Tuesday, 30 January 2024
The Kelly family was always skirting trouble. When 17-year-old Sabine Kelly’s mum and sister die with seven other people in a mysterious caravan park fire, Sabine confesses to the crime...
Look Me in the Eye (Jane Godwin, Lothian)
Tuesday, 23 January 2024
Look Me in the Eye is the latest young adult novel by award-winning author Jane Godwin. The story centres around Bella, a 13-year-old girl who leads quite a wholesome, drama-free...
Circles of Life (Gregg Dreise, Puffin)
Tuesday, 23 January 2024
Circles of Life is a picture book in verse that shares the tradition, beauty and importance of Thank You Circles, or Gabayindah Guroos. These artworks are painted in layers to...
Beatrix Bakes: Another Slice (Natalie Paull, Hardie Grant)
Tuesday, 23 January 2024
Come a Saturday morning, the line for Beatrix Bakes, a cult North Melbourne café and bakery, would snake down the street. Its closure in 2022—a personal tragedy for this reviewer—even...
The Rewilding (Donna M Cameron, Transit Lounge)
Tuesday, 23 January 2024
Jagger Eckerman, the scion of a corrupt construction mogul and protagonist of Donna M Cameron’s second novel, blows his life up one morning by sending a fateful email whistleblowing the...
The Independent Pea (Maree Coote, Melbournestyle)
Tuesday, 23 January 2024
Maree Coote’s love of vegetables, indulged vibrantly in her 2023 picture book Letters for Lunch!, gets another airing in The Independent Pea. This time, it’s an invigorating story about the...
A Secretive Century: Monte Punshon’s Australia (Tessa Morris-Suzuki, MUP)
Tuesday, 23 January 2024
A Secretive Century by Tessa Morris-Suzuki is an illuminating biography that unveils the remarkable life of Monte Punshon, an Australian woman who lived from 1882 to 1989. From her conservative...
Break the Curse (Shower Land #1) (Nat Amoore, illus James Hart, Puffin)
Tuesday, 23 January 2024
The first in a new junior fiction series, Shower Land 1: Break the Curse is a fun, whimsical book that will appeal to kids who enjoy fantasy and humour plots....
Shining Like the Sun (Stephen Orr, Wakefield)
Tuesday, 23 January 2024
Stephen Orr's Shining Like the Sun is like an Australian version of A Man Called Ove, with the same qualities of grit and humanity that made the Swedish novel so...
What Happened to Nina? (Dervla McTiernan, HarperCollins)
Tuesday, 16 January 2024
Nina and Simon are teenage sweethearts, but cracks are starting to show in their relationship. After a stint of long distance, they decide to get away to Simon's parents’ new...
Saturday Is Pancake Day (Bernadette Green, illus Daniel Gray-Barnett, Scribble)
Tuesday, 16 January 2024
In the lively domestic chaos of Saturday Is Pancake Day—a story that might make you relieved it’s not your turn for the washing up (or that you’re not attending the...
Cool Water (Myfanwy Jones, Hachette)
Tuesday, 16 January 2024
Myfanwy Jones’s Cool Water is a cross-generational novel about the inheritance of toxic masculinity. When Frank Herbert returns to Tinaroo for his daughter’s wedding, he can’t stop thinking about his...
Thanks for Having Me (Emma Darragh, JOAN)
Tuesday, 16 January 2024
Emma Darragh’s debut novel, Thanks for Having Me, is an intergenerational familial story that offers a glimpse into the lives of three women: Mary Anne, Vivian and Evie. It’s a non-sequential...
The Great Housing Hijack (Cameron K Murray, A&U)
Tuesday, 16 January 2024
Instead of your typical dense economics book, The Great Housing Hijack: The hoaxes and myths keeping prices high for renters and buyers in Australia uses a compelling narrative with analogies,...
Outlaw Girls (Emily Gale & Nova Weetman, Text)
Tuesday, 16 January 2024
Emily Gale and Nova Weetman deliver again with Outlaw Girls, the Kelly country time-slip follow-up to their CBCA Notable Elsewhere Girls. In 1878, Kate Kelly secretly slips supplies to her...
A Room for Ryel (Emma Cameron, Wombat)
Tuesday, 16 January 2024
Within modern shifting family dynamics, Emma Cameron’s A Room for Ryel emerges as a heartwarming tale that adeptly explores the intricacies and joys of blending families. The book seamlessly transcends...
One Another (Gail Jones, Text)
Tuesday, 9 January 2024
Expect no less from Gail Jones’s tenth novel, One Another, than carefully crafted prose that will delight and assure you of an expert at work. With a languid sense of...
I Hope This Doesn’t Find You (Ann Liang, Penguin)
Tuesday, 9 January 2024
Ann Liang’s third young adult novel, I Hope This Doesn’t Find You, is a feel-good rom-com that uses all the well-worn tropes of the enemies-to-lovers subgenre. When people-pleaser school captain...
The Most Amazing Thing (Ian Hayward Robinson, illus Matt Shanks, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 9 January 2024
The Most Amazing Thing is a sweet story about Henry, who, one rainy day, is trying to figure out what the most amazing thing is, so he can draw it...
The Girl from Moscow (Julia Levitina, Pantera)
Tuesday, 9 January 2024
In Julia Levitina’s debut novel, The Girl from Moscow, Ella Ashkenazi, an aspiring actor on the verge of a breakthrough role, discovers she is pregnant. It’s a low-key beginning to...
To and Fro (Anton Clifford-Motopi, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 9 January 2024
To and Fro by debut author Anton Clifford-Motopi is a heartfelt and humorous exploration of the complexities of growing up mixed-race in Australia. This delightful offering for readers aged 8–12...
Like Fire-Hearted Suns (Melanie Joosten, Ultimo)
Tuesday, 9 January 2024
‘Deeds not words’ was the valiant cry of the suffragettes, but does the average reader know what those deeds entailed? This average reader did not. While a work of fiction,...
Some People Want to Shoot Me (Wayne Bergmann & Madelaine Dickie, Fremantle)
Tuesday, 9 January 2024
Some People Want to Shoot Me is the straight-talking biography of Wayne Bergmann, an Indigenous land rights advocate and native title lawyer who famously took on a multinational company and...
What They Told Me (Hayley Lawrence, Scholastic)
Tuesday, 12 December 2023
Fifteen-year-old Elliott Gillespie has always believed she and her family are the lucky ones. Their home by Crooked River has been in the Gillespie family for generations. Her best friend,...
