Who Gets to be Smart (Bri Lee, A&U)
14 April 2021
Who Gets to be Smart opens with a walking tour of Oxford. Author Bri Lee is at the university to visit her friend, a freshly minted Rhodes Scholar. As the...
Kunyi (Kunyi June Anne McInerney, Magabala)
14 April 2021
Kunyi, an illustrated memoir of Kunyi June Anne McInerney’s childhood, collects snapshot moments and stories of her life, told in her own words and accompanied by her paintings. The lively...
100 Remarkable Feats of Xander Maze (Clayton Zane Comber, HarperCollins)
14 April 2021
Xander Maze’s best friend is his Nanna. When she is diagnosed with stage four cancer and asks him to write a list of 100 Remarkable Feats for him to achieve...
A Pair of Pears and an Orange (Anna McGregor, Scribble)
13 April 2021
A pair of pears are good friends who like to spend their days together, playing games that are just right for the two of them. When Orange appears, Little Pear...
One Hundred Days (Alice Pung, Black Inc.)
8 April 2021
Is there a right way to love? Karuna feels suffocated by her mother—and her entrapment multiplies when her dad leaves and she’s forced to move away from private school and...
A Paper Inheritance (Dymphna Stella Rees, UQP)
7 April 2021
Leslie Rees and Coralie Clarke Rees were a literary partnership, contemporaneous with two more famous Australian literary couples of the 20th century, Ruth Park and D’Arcy Niland, and Charmian Clift...
Marlow Brown, Magician in the Making (Kesta Fleming, illus by Marjory Gardner, Celapene Press)
7 April 2021
Kesta Fleming has written stories and poems for junior readers for many years, making her publishing debut with the Marlow Brown chapter books in 2019. Magician in the Making, the second in...
Echolalia (Briohny Doyle, Vintage)
7 April 2021
Echolalia, Briohny Doyle's skilful second novel, concerns a family on the verge of disintegration. Skipping elegantly between chapters set before and after a traumatic event that changes the family irrevocably,...
Gunk Baby (Jamie Marina Lau, Hachette)
31 March 2021
Leen has opened up a massage and ear cleaning studio in the suburban wastelands of Par Mars. Her shop is housed in the second-best shopping mall in the district—Topic Heights....
Dear Ibis (Kate Liston-Mills, Spineless Wonders)
31 March 2021
From the author of The Waterfowl Are Drunk! comes an elegant and moving collection of short fiction set principally in New South Wales. With stories taking place against the backdrop...
A Glasshouse of Stars (Shirley Marr, Puffin)
30 March 2021
Meixing and her family have recently arrived in the New Land with hopes of a better life. Everything is different for Meixing, including the large house that is now the...
Frizzle and Me (Ellie Royce, illus by Andrew McLean, Ford St)
30 March 2021
Frizzle and Me jumps on board a current—and vital—trend for books celebrating diversity, and makes a respectable contribution to the cohort. The premise is that the definition of ‘family’ is...
Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (River of Dreams) (Anita Heiss, S&S)
24 March 2021
Exploring themes of family, belonging, courage, equality and heartache, this important new historical novel from Anita Heiss raises awareness of First Nations perspectives on the early days of white settlement...
As Beautiful As Any Other (Kaya Wilson, Picador)
23 March 2021
As Beautiful As Any Other is a joyous and thoughtful memoir–travelogue covering the terrains of both the body and the environment. Kaya Wilson's voice makes the reader feel immediately at...
Why Do Tigers Have Whiskers? (ed by Sunanda Creagh, Thames & Hudson)
23 March 2021
Curated from the Curious Kids section of the academic-authored news website The Conversation, this book is compiled as a series of questions provided by kids and answered by a range...
A Human for Kingsley (Gabriel Evans, Little Hare)
23 March 2021
Kingsley, a dog who has decided to own a human, sets off on a journey to find just the right one. The problem is, there are so many humans to...
Monster (Ashleigh Synnott, Puncher & Wattmann)
17 March 2021
Monster is a collection of dark, finely written short stories by debut author Ashleigh Synnott. The stories are peopled with eccentric, predominantly female characters living atomised, often isolated lives. Mental...
Elsewhere Girls (Emily Gale & Nova Weetman, Text)
16 March 2021
Acclaimed authors Emily Gale and Nova Weetman have teamed up to write this beautifully rendered time-slip narrative that delves into the personal and social struggles of young women past and...
Before You Knew My Name (Jacqueline Bublitz, A&U)
16 March 2021
We know the phrase from books, from crime shows, from the news: ‘The body was found by a jogger.’ Someone is murdered and somebody else finds them, while just going...
Bear and Rat (Christopher Cheng, illus by Stephen Michael King, Puffin)
16 March 2021
This picture book is a heartwarming, tender tale of the loving relationship between two friends. The elegantly simple story in Bear and Rat holds a timeless, universal appeal with themes...
Two-Week Wait: An IVF story (Luke C Jackson & Kelly Jackson, illus by Mara Wild, Scribe)
11 March 2021
This graphic novel is the delicately told story of one couple’s journey through the in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) process. Two-Week Wait is based on the IVF experiences of authors Luke and...
The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen (Krissy Kneen, Text)
10 March 2021
According to many writers, examining memory is a largely creative act. If so, then Krissy Kneen shows us in The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen that it is also an...
Flock: First Nations stories then and now (ed by Ellen van Neerven, UQP)
10 March 2021
Flock is a far-roaming collection of short fiction showcasing the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers. The 20 stories are by a mix of established luminaries and emerging...
Can’t Say it Went to Plan (Gabrielle Tozer, HarperCollins)
10 March 2021
Schoolies is revered as a holiday unlike no other, where, for the first time, teenagers are free—from school, from adults, from responsibility. Can’t Say it Went to Plan follows three...
Artificial Intimacy (Rob Brooks, NewSouth)
2 March 2021
According to evolutionary biologist Rob Brooks, the future holds an abundance of artificial intimacy. New sex technologies, from sex robots to virtual reality porn, will anticipate our every desire. So...
The Little Boat on Trusting Lane (Mel Hall, Fremantle Press)
2 March 2021
In this debut novel set in an exaggerated version of the alternative wellness industry, Richard, an ageing wellness guru, runs his alternative healing centre from a rundown houseboat in the...
Common Wealth (Gregg Dreise, Scholastic)
2 March 2021
In light of the recent change to the lyrics of ‘Advance Australia Fair’, as well as the ongoing debate surrounding January 26, this impassioned plea for recognition and unity from...
Fil & Harry (Jenny Blackford, illus by Kristin Devine, Christmas Press)
2 March 2021
This charming novel is the first book in a new list from Christmas Press aimed at that tricky age between picture books and middle fiction. Written by Jenny Blackford, whose...
The Shape of Sound (Fiona Murphy, Text)
24 February 2021
Just like any relationship, even our relationship with our own body can be fraught with difficulty and denial. Fiona Murphy kept her deafness secret for 25 years, compensating for her...
Spring Clean for the Peach Queen (Sasha Wasley, Pantera)
23 February 2021
Sasha Wasley’s latest novel marries small-town fiction and Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up in a gentle exploration of what really matters. After her boyfriend dies of an...
