Review search
Willa and Woof (Jacqueline Harvey, Puffin)
Released July 2022
Jacqueline Harvey’s new series Willa and Woof follows a smart eight-year-old girl, Willa, and her ‘best four-legged friend’, Woof. In this first instalment, following in the tradition of other spirited... Read more
Rita’s Revenge (Lian Tanner, A&U)
Released July 2022
Rita’s Revenge is the companion book to Lian Tanner’s debut crime book A Clue for Clara (2020), and is set in the same small town of Little Dismal. Rita the... Read more
August & Jones (Pip Harry, Lothian)
Released July 2022
Meet Jones and August: Jones’s family have had to sell their farm and relocate to Sydney because of the drought, while August’s quirky personality means he feels isolated both at... Read more
The Vexatious Haunting of Lily Griffin (Paula Hayes, illus by Katy Jiang, Fremantle Press)
Released July 2022
Eleven-year-old Lily Griffin is precocious but lonely—bullied by her brother and benignly neglected by the rest of her unusual family. Lily’s life changes dramatically when she discovers a girl trapped... Read more
What We All Saw (Mike Lucas, Puffin)
Released June 2022
In a small English country town in the 1970s, four friends make their way to the local quarry, a place where stories of witches and curses are born. Hag’s Drop,... Read more
The Way of Dog (Zana Fraillon, UQP)
Released May 2022
The Way of Dog is the latest work from internationally acclaimed author Zana Fraillon. A beautifully written verse novel told through an animal voice, this is an ambitious and absorbing... Read more
All the Little Tricky Things (Karys McEwen, Text)
Released May 2022
This debut middle-grade novel is a gentle and empathetic story about navigating the period between primary and high school, as well as the complex ways in which adolescent female friendships... Read more
The Callers (Kiah Thomas, HarperCollins)
Released May 2022
Publishing simultaneously in Australia and the US, The Callers—Kiah Thomas’s first foray into middle-grade fiction—is a thoughtful, nuanced fantasy adventure in which two young people fight back against a colonising... Read more
Seven Days (Fleur Ferris, Puffin)
Released May 2022
Winner of a Young Australian Best Book Award (YABBA) for her debut YA novel Risk, Fleur Ferris has subsequently built a reputation for dark and compelling YA thrillers. Ferris’s second... Read more
How to Spell Catastrophe (Fiona Wood, Pan)
Released May 2022
Fiona Wood, three-time winner of the CBCA Book of the Year for Older Readers, moves into middle-grade fiction with the funny and charming How to Spell Catastrophe. Nell McPherson is... Read more
