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This One is Ours (Kate O’Donnell, UQP)

Released October 2020

In her second novel, Kate O’Donnell, author of Untidy Towns, delivers an insightful and earnest coming-of-age story brimming with humanity. This One is Ours takes readers on a romantic overseas... Read more

Scary Bird (Michel Streich, Scholastic)

Released October 2020

A lively little book, Scary Bird puts diversity, adjustment and acceptance into an understandable parable for little listeners (though plenty of big listeners would also do well to pay attention... Read more

Death Leaves the Station (Alexander Thorpe, Fremantle Press)

Released October 2020

In 1927 at Halfwell Station in regional WA, the station owner’s daughter, Ana, discovers a body in the nearby desert. At around the same time, a nameless friar arrives at... Read more

How to Make a Bird (Meg McKinlay, illus by Matt Ottley, Walker Books)

Released October 2020

For those children who revel in the natural environment, particularly fossils and bones, How to Make a Bird is a delight. According to the young girl protagonist, you will need... Read more

The Tunnel of Dreams (Bernard Beckett, Text)

Released October 2020

The Tunnel of Dreams is a charmingly breezy middle fiction fantasy novel about identical twins Arlo and Stefan, and their adventure in a parallel, magic-filled world. Author Bernard Beckett wastes... Read more

Wolfred (Nick Bland, Hardie Grant Egmont)

Released October 2020

Toddlers and preschoolers will enjoy the engaging rhymes, quirky illustration and straightforward messaging of this new tale from popular picture book author Nick Bland. When aspiring writer Wolfred McFlea is... Read more

Bindi (Kirli Saunders, illus by Dub Leffler, Magabala)

Released October 2020

Multi–award winning author and poet Kirli Saunders turns her talent to junior fiction with this wonderfully engaging verse novel, which won the inaugural WA Premier’s Daisy Utemorrah Award. Eleven-year-old Bindi... Read more

Soar: A life freed by dance (David McAllister, Thames & Hudson)

Released October 2020

As both a star principal dancer and tenured artistic director, David McAllister is a reliable chronicler of Australia’s recent ballet history. In his memoir Soar, McAllister records his early years... Read more

It’s Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake (Claire Christian, Text)

Released October 2020

Claire Christian’s first adult novel is billed as a contemporary romantic comedy and while there is a delicious romance plot, the true love story is between the eponymous protagonist and... Read more

All Our Shimmering Skies (Trent Dalton, HarperCollins)

Released October 2020

Backdropped by the 1942 bombing of Darwin, Trent Dalton’s All Our Shimmering Skies is a macabre, dreamlike fable interrogating greed and intergenerational trauma. At the age of seven, gravedigger girl... Read more

Piper Picks the Perfect Pet (Caroline Tuohey, illus by Nicky Johnston, Ford St)

Released October 2020

From the alliterative title alone, you know this picture book must be read out loud to the little ones. Piper Picks the Perfect Pet even rhymes, which will add to... Read more

Rural Dreams (Margaret Hickey, MidnightSun)

Released October 2020

Rural Dreams, like its name implies, is a short story collection deeply rooted in country Australia. Reading it you can practically smell the dry grass, eucalyptus and stale pub carpet.... Read more

Future Girl (Asphyxia, A&U)

Released October 2020

The events of Future Girl play out in a future Melbourne that is eerily plausible. Food has been largely replaced by recon, an all-in-one food replacement that is marketed as... Read more

A Letter to Layla: Travels to our deep past and near future (Ramona Koval, Text)

Released October 2020

Ramona Koval’s latest book is really a quest story: in it she sets out to find how humanity got to where we are now, and where we are going. In... Read more

Aussie STEM Stars: Fiona Wood (Cristy Burne, Wild Dingo Press)

Released October 2020

‘Aussie STEM Stars’ is an exciting new narrative nonfiction series that celebrates experts in the fields of science, maths, engineering and technology. Book one centres on the story of Fiona... Read more

Living With the Anthropocene (ed by Cameron Muir, Kirsten Wehner & Jenny Newell, NewSouth)

Released October 2020

‘You’re not alone’ is one of the key threads in this collection of essays. That and ‘deep grief’ for what we know and don’t know is being lost, with many... Read more

Loss Adjustment (Linda Collins, Awa Press)

Released October 2020

The unimaginable horror of losing a beloved only child to suicide concentrated Linda Collins’ mind, producing this extraordinary book. The pain of her loss suffuses every page, but she writes... Read more

A Different Kind of Seeing (Marie Younan, Scribe)

Released October 2020

This is a simply told tale of an extraordinary life. Marie Younan’s memoir unravels twin narratives: being blind in a seeing world and being part of a displaced people. For... Read more

Little Jiang (Shirley Marr, illus by Katy Jiang, Fremantle Press)

Released October 2020

Born under a confluence of inauspicious signs and hitherto haunted by all manner of hungry ghosts, it’s difficult for Mei to dismiss her aunt’s firmly held belief that she is... Read more

Fly on the Wall (Remy Lai, Walker)

Released September 2020

When Henry Khoo isn’t trolling his school as anonymous cartoonist ‘Fly on the Wall’, he is being babied at home by an overprotective family. To correct this, Henry devises a... Read more