Anh Do (text) and Jules Faber (illustrator), Vote Weirdo (WeirDo #14), Scholastic Australia, April 2020, 160 pp., RRP $15.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781743836668 People might wonder if getting to book #14 in a series is a huge achievement or is just going a bit over the top. How many new situations can your character be in? Is it still funny? Will the audience still have an appetite for the series? Perhaps for literary series for adult books, #14 might be a bit stale, but for kids, both established readers and those still building their fluency, there is a huge interest in their favourite characters. Some…
Author: Admin
S. C. Manchild (text) and Sam Caldwell (illustrator), Sneaky Shadows, Berbay Publishing, July 2020, 36 pp., RRP $25.99 (hbk) ISBN 9780648529163 Sneaky Shadows is a modern take on the mystery of shadow puppets and hand shadows. This is the very funny and bold first book by author S.C. Manchild who writes under this pen name, so the governing board of his international company does not discover his identity and his true passion for writing funny picture books. Whose shadow is it? Did you guess a dinosaur? It’s much scarier than that. This poor kangaroo is panicking because she is meant to be babysitting four young penguins while their parents are out at a Christmas party. But they’re out of control… Using a witty, comic voice and Sam Caldwell’s bold and extremely creative illustrations this picture book is sure to have…
Andrew Kelly (text) and Heather Potter & Mark Jackson (illustrators), Little Lon, June 2020, Wild Dog Books, 40 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781742035970 When the new Commonwealth building was planned for Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, the demolishers and archaeologists found remnants of people’s lives. Andrew Kelly mentions many of them, but he specifically recounts the childhood of Marie Hayes who lived in a small weatherboard house in the street – Little Lon. Marie’s family were not well off, but happily survived amid the multicultural environment of early twentieth century central Melbourne, playing on the street and having a weekly bath at the City Baths. This warm and lavishly illustrated story is intended for primary readers. It…
Siobhan Curham, Clementine and Rudy, June 2020, Walker Books Ltd., 330 pp., RRP $16.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781406390230 Rudy Knight, fifteen, is an urban street artist as well as a schoolgirl. She is more or less under the sway of her best friend Tyler—thin, with long hair, and usually attached to an electric guitar; he is a seventeen-year-old apprentice cook at the café where she has a part-time job. Her mother has a boyfriend who wants to move in. Clementine, fifteen, is an Instagram poet. Her mother, forty, has a second husband who is probably cheating on her. Clementine loves the poetry of Emily Dickinson. She takes photographs of street art and posts them. Both girls live in Brighton, England. When Clementine posts Rudy’s…
Kaye Baillie (text) and Tracie Grimwood (illustrator), Boo loves Books, New Frontier Publishing, May 2020, 32 pp., (hbk), RRP $24.99 ISBN 9781922326027 Children who have trouble with reading as well as those who suffer from anxiety are likely to find reassurance and encouragement in this story. The main character Phoebe finds reading stressful and when her class teacher announces an excursion to read ‘somewhere special’ her tummy flip flops. She tells her mum, ‘I’ll be sick tomorrow’. When the class arrives at a lost dog’s home and the children are expected to read to the animals, Phoebe is even more worried. Not only does she not like reading but her dog Boo is BIG. But when Phoebe’s…
Emily S. Smith (text) and Heidi Cooper Smith (illustrator), Garbage Guts, Larrikin House, April 2020, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk) ISBN 9780987635426 Garbage Gutshttps://booktopia.kh4ffx.net/P570q by Emily S. Smith and illustrated by Heidi Cooper Smith is the engaging tale of a dreadful beast made up entirely of garbage and living beneath the waves of the North Pacific Ocean. Unlike the other sea creatures, Garbage Guts does not care about his environment or his neighbours and sets about a wicked scheme to rid the ocean of its precious wildlife. Although Garbage Guts is determined to get his own way, a nasty surprise and a taste of his own polluted medicine convinces him to change his ways for good. In the North Pacific Ocean lives a monster made of trash, A hungry, greedy…
Atinuke (text) and Angela Brooksbank (illustrator), B is for Baby, Walker Books Ltd., April 2019, 40 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781406371086 Adventure with baby, in a story told mostly with B words! Thank you Atinuke, author of this beautiful book, that has us sharing the journey of Baby’s brother on his bike, on his way to see Baba… with bananas in his basket. Little does he know his cheeky baby sister is also joining him along his travels! When and how will he discover the presence of his playful sibling companion? Set in West Africa; there are many natural wonders to witness on the way to Baba’s place. Enjoy watching the siblings as they experience their travels from…
Sue Whiting and Annie White answer some questions about their latest book Good Question: A Tale Told Backwards. Thanks to Sue, Annie, and Walker Books Australia for this interview. Shelley Stephens interviews author Sue Whiting This was such a fun read! How did you come up with the idea? Thank you. I am so glad you enjoyed it – it was a fun one to write. The story idea came to me quite unexpectedly and very organically when I was scrolling through a digital photo library and spotted a photo of a gorgeous red fox perched high in a fir tree. It was staring at me with its cunning foxy eyes and I asked…
Sue Whiting (text) and Annie White (illustrations), Good Question: A Tale Told Backwards, Walker Books Australia, May 2020, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781760650841 Fox has a dilemma… He is hungry, and in his effort to fill his belly keeps stumbling into the wrong story. Encountering some of the most well-known fairytale and nursery rhyme characters, poor Fox finds adventure after adventure, but he cannot seem to find something to eat! Will he find his meal, and more importantly will we finally know why the sky was falling in Henny Penny? Sue Whiting cleverly reveals Fox’s plight, combining favourite characters and stories from Jack and the Beanstalk to Henny Penny, not to mention a fun theory about why poor Henny Penny thought…
Helen Lear (text) and Katya Swan (illustrator), Frankie Pants and Mr Fox, Little Steps Publishing, February 2020, 28 pp., RRP $14.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781925839654 Frankie the cat likes to do, well, not much. He lazes about in the sun, stretches, then lazes some more. It’s a tough life. But something amazing happens when the clock strikes midnight… This is when the transformation takes place and Frankie goes from sloth-like house cat to… Frankie Pants! And good thing because Frankie Pants has important work to do. See, Mr Fox is out lurking the neighborhood again, and has his sights set on a coop full of helpless chickens. Help, Frankie Pants! Frankie Pants is the unlikely…