The Tiny Star (Mem Fox, illus by Freya Blackwood, Puffin)
5 September 2019
Individually, a new book by either Mem Fox or Freya Blackwood, both award-winners and bestselling children’s book creators, would be welcomed by their readers. This book combines the two, with...
Invisible Boys (Holden Sheppard, Fremantle Press)
5 September 2019
In the coastal town of Geraldton, several young men struggle with the restrictions placed on them by culture, parental expectations and peer pressure. With the threat of violence a constant,...
My Folks Grew Up in the ’80s (Robin Feiner, illus by Beck Feiner, ABC Books)
5 September 2019
From the first glance of this picture book, those of us (particularly Generation Xers) who grew up in the 80s know we’re in for a treat. There, on the cover,...
Ghost Bird (Lisa Fuller, UQP)
5 September 2019
Lisa Fuller was the recipient of the 2017 David Unaipon Award for an Unpublished Indigenous Writer for Ghost Bird. In this young adult novel, Stacey Thomson’s twin sister, Laney, is...
Windcatcher (Diane Jackson Hill, illus by Craig Smith, CSIRO Publishing)
5 September 2019
Windcatcher is the story of the migration of the short-tailed shearwater. In particular, the solo offspring of bird number 625. Her mother was tagged with a metal leg band so...
The Lost Stone of SkyCity (H M Waugh, Fremantle Press)
5 September 2019
When the princess of the terrifying, fabled Ice-People kidnaps Danam, claiming him as her prophesied protector, his friend Sunaya knows she’s the only one who can rescue him. But it’s...
Act of Grace (Anna Krien, Black Inc.)
29 August 2019
Anna Krien’s debut novel is an ambitious and compelling study of trauma and how it’s transferred and inherited, told through the points of view of four disparate but interconnected characters....
Paris Savages (Katherine Johnson, Ventura)
29 August 2019
Katherine Johnson’s fourth novel is a poignant imagining of the true story of three young Aboriginal people—Bonny, Dorondera and Jurano—who in 1882 agree to tour Europe with German engineer Hans...
Bruny (Heather Rose, A&U)
29 August 2019
Set in a near future, Heather Rose’s latest book is a work of political intrigue that samples current events and headlines. A diplomat returns to her Tasmanian hometown, charged with...
Womerah Lane: Lives and landscapes (Tom Carment, Giramondo)
29 August 2019
Tom Carment’s Womerah Lane is a lively and pensive personal history, chronicling 30 years of life and art from one of Australia’s most well-known landscape artists. Taking an episodic, essayistic...
Her Kind of Luck (Michelle Balogh, Brio)
29 August 2019
When Michelle Balogh’s great-grandmother Shan-Yi dies, Balogh moves into her apartment temporarily. Struggling with depression, the opportunity to live in the luxurious Sydney home provides a welcome change, but it...
Wearing Paper Dresses (Anne Brinsden, Macmillan)
29 August 2019
Life is tough in the Mallee in the 1950s, and when city sophisticate Elise, brimming with artistic and musical talent, is uprooted with her young children to her father-in-law’s wheat...
There Was Still Love (Favel Parrett, Hachette)
6 August 2019
Favel Parrett’s third novel, There Was Still Love, is a meticulously observed and masterfully crafted immigrant story about a displaced Czech family. The novel oscillates in nearly every way—between the...
Summer Time (Hilary Bell, illus by Antonia Pesenti, NewSouth)
1 August 2019
Summer Time, Hilary Bell and Antonia Pesenti’s third picture book collaboration, explores ideas of time within the grand nostalgic mythology of Australian summer. On each double-page spread, a chapter-like stanza...
The Man in the Water (David Burton, UQP)
1 August 2019
Four years after his award-winning YA memoir How to be Happy, David Burton returns with The Man in the Water, a coming-of-age mystery novel with an undercurrent of grief and...
Angel Mage (Garth Nix, A&U)
1 August 2019
Recently in fantasy there has been a move away from medieval Europe settings. One of the most popular examples of this is the 17th-century-Europe-inspired ‘Flintlock Fantasy’, though it owes as...
All of the Factors of Why I Love Tractors (Davina Bell, illus by Jenny Løvlie, Little Hare)
1 August 2019
A little boy called Frankie, accompanied by his mother, visits the library and borrows his favourite book about tractors. He is already well versed in all the characteristics and functions...
Super Nova (Krys Saclier, illus by Rebecca Timmis, Ford St)
1 August 2019
Super Nova is the story of the protagonist and his sister Nova, who he believes is getting up to all sorts of mischief. 'Nova always gets away with it,' says...
The Glimme (Emily Rodda, illus by Marc McBride, Scholastic)
1 August 2019
The Glimme starts in a perfectly ordinary and dull fishing village with a boy called Finn sketching dragons and monsters. But it’s not long before Finn is standing in front...
Ask Hercules Quick (Ursula Dubosarsky, illus by Andrew Joyner, A&U)
1 August 2019
Hercules lives with his alligator aunt in a building full of quirky characters. On a trip to the shops his imagination is captured by a magic box, but how will...
The Woman Who Cracked the Anxiety Code: The extraordinary life of Dr Claire Weekes (Judith Hoare, Scribe)
25 July 2019
Australian doctor Claire Weekes found worldwide fame with her bestselling books on ‘nervous illness’ in the 1960s and 1970s—but despite gratitude from thousands of sufferers, she is almost forgotten today....
The Innocent Reader: Reflections on reading and writing (Debra Adelaide, Picador)
25 July 2019
Debra Adelaide’s biblio-memoir is more of a collection of essays than a cohesive story of a literary life, and reading it as such can help mitigate some of the internal...
The Weekend (Charlotte Wood, A&U)
25 July 2019
After Sylvie’s sudden death, her three closest friends—former restaurateur Jude, public intellectual Wendy and actress Adele—must renegotiate the boundaries of their lifelong foursome. As they retreat to Sylvie’s isolated beach...
Being Black ’N Chicken, & Chips (Matt Okine, Hachette)
25 July 2019
It’s 1998. Mike Amon is almost 13 and about to start high school. All he wants is to be good enough at athletics to be chosen for the Dobson Dash,...
Hide (S J Morgan, MidnightSun)
25 July 2019
Hide opens in the Australian outback in the 1980s. A hitchhiker, Alec, is picked up by a man who has his own intentions for the passenger. When the driver reveals...
The Tiniest House of Time (Sreedhevi Iyer, Wild Dingo)
25 July 2019
The Tiniest House of Time is the well-researched debut novel by Sreedhevi Iyer, an Indian-Malaysian-Australian author. Matriarch Susheela Sastri is dying. Her granddaughter, Sandhya, born on the same date as...
Silver (Chris Hammer, A&U)
25 July 2019
Silver is Chris Hammer’s follow-up to his bestselling debut Scrublands. In Hammer’s second novel, journalist Martin Scarsden, fresh from turning the events of Scrublands into a book, follows his new...
How to Make a Movie in 12 Days (Fiona Hardy, Affirm Kids)
4 July 2019
Hayley, 11, has one mission in life: to make a movie. Ever since Grandma—who was going to make it with her—died, the need is much greater than before, especially since...
The Secret Science Society’s Spectacular Experiment (Kathy Hoopmann & Josie Montano, illus by Ann-Marie Finn, Wombat Books)
4 July 2019
Since Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, the trend for kids’ books celebrating perseverance, creativity and innovation has seeped from nonfiction into fiction. Kathy Hoopmann and Josie Montano’s chapter book for...
Monuments (Will Kostakis, Lothian)
4 July 2019
Award-winning young adult author Will Kostakis makes his first foray into urban fantasy with Monuments, book one in a duology that has a massive scope but a local setting. Sixteen-year-old...
