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Coming of Age in the War on Terror (Randa Abdel-Fattah, NewSouth)
Released February 2021
‘I’ve always had this almost pre-conceived guilt attached to who I was.’ — Jena (18, Lebanese–Australian, South West Sydney) On September 11 2001, two planes smashed into the World Trade... Read more
The Boy From the Mish (Gary Lonesborough, A&U)
Released February 2021
Jackson is an Aboriginal teen who lives with his mum and little brother; he has a girlfriend, good mates and the local men’s group. Then his aunty from the city... Read more
Buried Not Dead (Fiona McGregor, Giramondo)
Released February 2021
Outsider art, as critic Roger Cardinal once wrote, is ‘immune to the polarisations of culture and the copycat spirit of cultural art’. It’s fair to say that Fiona McGregor’s new... Read more
The Price of Two Sparrows (Christy Collins, Affirm)
Released February 2021
Christy Collins’s The Price of Two Sparrows is an elegantly structured study of migration and community in Australia. A burgeoning Muslim community on the outskirts of Sydney has made plans... Read more
With a Little Kelp from Our Friends (Mathew Bate, illus by Liz Rowland, Thames & Hudson)
Released February 2021
From the evolution of this fascinating stuff to its modern usage as food, fuel and building material, in With a Little Kelp from Our Friends Mathew Bate tells you everything... Read more
The Speechwriter (Martin McKenzie-Murray, Scribe)
Released February 2021
Martin McKenzie-Murray’s fiction debut is a fun but sometimes frustrating book that nevertheless delivers plenty of laughs along the way. The story is told by Toby—an aspiring speechwriter whose hyper-ambition... Read more
The Ghost Squad (Sophie Masson, MidnightSun)
Released February 2021
This young adult thriller starts as a post-collapse story and then takes a supernatural turn. It begins with ‘the pulse’, a solar flare that shuts down all electronics, pitching the... Read more
Footprints on the Moon (Lorraine Marwood, UQP)
Released February 2021
It’s 1969 and Sharnie is entering year seven and finding it difficult to make friends. The world is consumed by the Space Race and the Vietnam War, and Sharnie is... Read more
Eating With My Mouth Open (Sam van Zweden, NewSouth)
Released February 2021
Sam van Zweden’s Eating With My Mouth Open is at once an expressive memoir and a cultural commentary on the role of food in our lives. It’s part vulnerable and... Read more
Black Summer (ed by Michael Rowland, ABC Books)
Released January 2021
This excellent anthology won’t be the final word on the 2019–20 Black Summer fires but it contains some of the very best words you can read on the subject. From... Read more
An Amazing Australian Road Trip (Jackie Hosking, illus by Lesley Vamos, Walker Books)
Released January 2021
This cheerful picture book employs a lively rhyming narrative alongside factual snippets, creating a unique reading experience that is sure to appeal to fans of both fiction and nonfiction. The... Read more
The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman (Julietta Henderson, Bantam)
Released January 2021
Norman Foreman isn’t your average 12-year-old: he’s obsessed with classic British comedy, he’s got raging psoriasis, and he and his best mate Jax have a five-year plan to perform stand-up... Read more
Shelter (Catherine Jinks, Text)
Released January 2021
Meg has taken in three strangers—Nerine and her two small daughters—in a bid to hide them from Nerine’s abusive ex-husband. The house is secluded, safe, but Nerine can’t shake the... Read more
Let’s Go, Little Roo (Renée Treml, Puffin)
Released January 2021
Prolific author Renée Treml says she wrote Let's Go, Little Roo from experience with her own shy child, and Little Roo’s stubborn emotions and thought processes are certainly recognisable. (Though... Read more
Little Gem (Anna Zobel, Puffin)
Released January 2021
Little Gem is a witch-in-training who has the best intentions but doesn’t always get things quite right. When a travelling spell goes wrong Gem finds herself in the unusual village... Read more
Repentance (Alison Gibbs, Scribe)
Released January 2021
It’s 1976, a time of change and cultural shifts. The town of Repentance perches on the edge of the Great Dividing Range: the old families cut timber and the new... Read more
Dingo Bold: The life and death of K’gari dingoes (Rowena Lennox, Sydney University Press)
Released January 2021
In Dingo Bold, Rowena Lennox wrestles with the emotionally laden subject of the human–wild divide through the lens of the policies managing the dingoes on K’gari (Fraser Island). Along the... Read more
The Women and the Girls (Laura Bloom, A&U)
Released January 2021
The Women and the Girls follows three mothers as they walk away from their unhappy marriages and move their children into a share house in Sydney. Against a backdrop of... Read more
Give Me Some Space! (Philip Bunting, Omnibus)
Released December 2020
Una is a singular girl on a mission: leave boring old Earth behind for greener pastures—or in this case, planets. Smart, determined and ingenious, she crafts herself a homespun spacesuit... Read more
Fire, Flood, Plague: Australian writers respond to 2020 (ed by Sophie Cunningham, Vintage)
Released December 2020
This deeply unsettling book bravely attempts to interpret, chronicle and reflect on the nightmarish events of this year. While I relished the opportunity to try to make sense of 2020,... Read more
