Outrageous Fortunes (Megan Brown & Lucy Sussex, La Trobe)
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
‘Mary Fortune’ might sound like a pseudonym but it’s the name of one of Australia’s most prolific—if often overlooked—woman crime writers. Outrageous Fortunes is a dual biography of Fortune and...
Joan Lindsay: The Hidden Life of the Woman Who Wrote ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ (Brenda Niall, Text)
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Brenda Niall’s portrait of author Joan Lindsay is bookended by her charming recollections of meeting Lindsay in 1984, just months before her death. In the intervening chapters of this concise...
Creature Corridors (Billie Rooney, illus Anke Noack, CSIRO Publishing)
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Billie Rooney’s educational picture book, Creature Corridors, explores how human infrastructure impacts animal habitats and highlights the role of wildlife corridors in helping animals travel and live safely. The book...
Harry and Gran Bake a Cake (Fiona McIntosh, illus Sara Acton, Puffin)
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Fiona McIntosh (The Sugar Palace), the much-celebrated author for grown-ups, makes her debut in picture books with the simply delicious Harry and Gran Bake a Cake. A day in the...
Sunny and Shadow (Helen Milroy, Fremantle)
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Sunny and Shadow is a heartfelt junior fiction novel and intergenerational tale that follows Calla and her descendants, who all have the precious gift of talking with and caring for...
Past & Parallel Lives (Kaya Ortiz, UWA Publishing)
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
In their debut poetry collection, Past & Parallel Lives, Kaya Ortiz explores what it means to wrestle with your identity and find belonging. Their poetry strikes a balance between grounded...
Monty and Mandy Take On Camp Spaloonka (Adam Wallace, illus Dave Atze, Larrikin)
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Monty and Mandy Take on Camp Spaloonka is a junior graphic novel that follows the hilarious adventures of Monty and Mandy, two best friends who get very excited about everything...
Creating Schools: Where Students and Teachers Want to Be (Michael Lawrence & Fabio D’Agostin, Melbourne Books)
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Teachers Michael Lawrence (Testing 3, 2, 1) and Fabio D’Agostin (whose PhD was called ‘Task-Related Emotions in Mathematics Education’) have written an informed and considered exploration of the growing crises...
Grave Empire: Book One of The Great Silence (Richard Swan, Orbit)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
In Grave Empire, Richard Swan returns to the world of his Empire of the Wolf fantasy trilogy in a way that’s thrilling and wholly unexpected. Set two hundred years after...
The Body Next Door (Zane Lovitt, Text)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
Nestled in Melbourne’s western suburbs, Carnation Way is a quiet street of identical-looking houses with one distinction: number 37 was the scene of a murder 13 years ago. In the...
Unhallowed Halls (Lili Wilkinson, A&U)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
Lili Wilkinson’s latest young adult novel, Unhallowed Halls, is a dark academia fantasy about finding your inner strength and accepting who you are. After a tragic incident that ended her...
Your Soul Purpose: Manifest a Life You Love (Aubrey Daquinag, Hardie Grant Books)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
Aubrey Daquinag’s Your Soul Purpose: Manifest a Life You Love offers an accessible entry point for readers looking to shift their thinking about life. The book introduces key concepts to...
Gutsy Girls (Josie McSkimming, UQP)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
When Dorothy Porter died in 2008, Australia lost one of its greatest contemporary poets. The author of nine poetry collections and five verse novels, Porter had a lusty, raw and...
Llamas in the Library (James Hinchon, illus Ian Worrall-Dutton, Five Mile)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
James Hinchon’s Llamas in the Library is a rollicking adventure about a group of children who must team up to herd a marauding group of llamas that infiltrates their school...
Brightest Wild (Tania Crampton-Larking, Lothian)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
Brightest Wild, by Mirning woman Tania Crampton-Larking, was a winning manuscript in the 2019 black&write! Fellowships for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers. It tells the story of 12-year-old Alex,...
Brave in Every Which Way (Maddy Mara, illus Lauren Degraaf, Affirm)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
Brave in Every Which Way by Maddy Mara (aka Hilary Rogers and Meredith Badger, who also produced Itty Bitty Kitty and The Greatest Mistakes That Went Right under this same...
The Grapevine (Kate Kemp, Hachette)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
As summertime scorches Canberra and the 1970s draw to a close, a severed foot is discovered on the mountain behind Warrah Place. When it’s identified as belonging to Antonio Marietti,...
Diary of a Marine Biologist (Anita Thomas, illus Sarah Wilkins & Anita Thomas, Walker)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
Did you know that oysters are often called the kidneys of the ocean because they filter a bathtub’s worth of water every two days? Or that marine biologists play a...
We Speak of Flowers (Eileen Chong, UQP)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
How can we occupy spaces after death? Where do we place our grief when we lose someone close to us? Eileen Chong (A Thousand Crimson Blooms) explores these tender questions...
The Library of Bears (Cat Rabbit, Berbay)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
The Library of Bears, the fourth book by textile artist and designer Cat Rabbit (How to Make Friends: A Bear’s Guide), reassures children that while trying new things can be...
Ten Ways to Find Love … and How to Keep It (Lisa Portolan, Echo)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
Lisa Portolan’s Ten Ways to Find Love … and How to Keep It explores the idea that pursuing love in the digital age is not just about finding love but...
Wonders Under the Moon (Tai Snaith, T&H)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
When the sun goes down, weird and wonderful night-time creatures come out to play. Tai Snaith’s new reference picture book, Wonders Under the Moon: A Collection of Night-Time Creatures, features...
All the Colours of the Rainbow (Rae White, illus Sha’an d’Anthes, Lothian)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
In All the Colours of the Rainbow, Jem sometimes wants to wear their yellow dress with blue sandals and sometimes blue jeans with orange sneakers. The story invites readers into...
When the Deep, Dark Bush Swallows You Whole (Geoff Parkes, Penguin)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
Set in Aotearoa New Zealand, Geoff Parkes’ debut crime novel, When the Deep Dark Bush Swallows You Whole, is a twisting thriller that explores the shadows that lurk behind the...
Those Opulent Days (Jacquie Pham, Ultimo)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
At first glance, Jacquie Pham’s debut novel, Those Opulent Days, might appear to be a classic whodunit murder mystery, except the true ‘villain’ is far from the usual suspect. Set...
Women of a Certain Courage (ed by Bron Bateman, Fremantle)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
In this compelling anthology, 18 women from diverse backgrounds challenge traditional notions of what it means to be courageous. Edited by Bron Bateman (Of Memory and Furniture), Women of a...
A Piece of Red Cloth (Leonie Norrington, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Djawa Burarrwanga & Djawundil Maymuru, A&U)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
The best fiction allows the reader to enter times, cultures and places otherwise inaccessible. Children’s fiction writer Leonie Norrington was commissioned by her adoptive mother, Yolŋu woman Clare Bush, to...
Somebody Down There Likes Me (Robert Lukins, A&U)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
Somebody Down There Likes Me begins with a limousine pulling up to a defunct gas station near a United States ghost town, setting an apt tone for a novel that...
The Humongous Humdingle Family and the Tiny House (Michelle Wilson, illus PJ Reece, EK Books)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
In The Humongous Humdingle Family and the Tiny House, Michelle Wilson introduces readers to the eight human members of the multi-generational Humdingle family, and their many pets, who all live...
Jungle Escape (Nathan Luff, Walker)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
Jungle Escape is the latest middle-grade title by Nathan Luff, author of Bad Grammar and the Family Disasters and Nerd Herd series. This stand-alone novel is filled with comedic mishaps, deliberate misunderstandings, and...
