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...
Ollie and Augustus (Gabriel Evans, Walker)
4 July 2019
When Ollie (‘small—like a pickling jar or a shoe box’) starts school, he worries that his beloved pet Augustus (‘large—like a fridge or a table’; a vast creature of indeterminate...
The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling (Wai Chim, A&U)
4 July 2019
Sixteen-year-old Anna comes from a relatively traditional Chinese-Australian family. Originally from Hong Kong, her father owns a restaurant while her mother stays at home to look after the children. Anna...
Grace’s Secrets (Louise Park, Berbay)
4 July 2019
Having relocated to a Scottish castle with her mother, Grace discovers a way into the past and promptly sets about helping her predecessors, even as her actual life seems to...
Kulinmaya! Keep Listening, Everybody! (Mumu Mike Williams, A&U)
4 July 2019
Pitjantjatjara artist and activist Mumu Mike Williams, aka Kunmanara, sought to hold the government to account on Indigenous issues through his subversive artwork, which repurposed Australia Post mailbags into painted...
Cryptosight (Nean McKenzie, MidnightSun)
4 July 2019
Cryptosight is a fun romp through regional Victoria, following Raff and his younger sister as they try to track down their missing monster-tracking father, while out-swerving the baddies at every...
The Gift (Michael Speechley, Picture Puffin)
4 July 2019
Rosie is a lonely little girl who misses her mum. Across the street from Rosie’s place is a scary and neglected-looking house. Rosie has never seen the person who lives...
I Am Change (Suzy Zail, Black Dog)
4 July 2019
Suzy Zail's latest novel tells the story of young Lilian, who wants nothing more than to go to school. However, poverty, outdated traditions and the simple fact she was born...
Jinxed!: The Curious Curse of Cora Bell (Rebecca McRitchie, illus by Sharon O’Connor, HarperCollins)
4 July 2019
Rebecca McRitchie follows the success of her ‘Whimsy and Woe’ duology with a new middle-grade fantasy series, of which Jinxed! is the first instalment. Cora lives in the tumbledown city...
The Lords of Melody (Phillip Gwynne, Puffin)
4 July 2019
Suzi Lord lives on a street full of mansions in an old weatherboard house bought by her ex-rock star parents while they were at the height of their fame with...
Growing Up Queer in Australia (ed by Benjamin Law, Black Inc.)
27 June 2019
Mapped across a spectrum of ages and eras, sexualities and ethnicities, Growing Up Queer in Australia captures the resilience and strength of queer people coming of age in Australia. Edited...
A River with a City Problem: A history of Brisbane floods (Margaret Cook, UQP)
27 June 2019
Who can forget the image of a disheveled Premier Anna Bligh, in the midst of the devastating 2011 Brisbane floods, making her ‘We are Queenslanders’ speech? In the aptly titled...
Lucky Ticket (Joey Bui, Text)
27 June 2019
Lucky Ticket is the debut short story collection from Joey Bui, runner-up in Overland’s 2017 Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize for ‘Hot Days’, which features in this collection. ‘Lucky Ticket’,...
