Nick Falk (text), Tony Flowers (illus), Day of the Dreadful Undead (Samurai vs Ninja #3), Random House Australia, 1 July 2015, 96pp., $9.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9780857986382 “Every year, the villagers in the valley held a feast to honour their ancestors. Paper lanterns were lit to invite the dead to join the celebration. And at midnight, the paper lanterns were floated down the river to take the dead back to the underworld. If this was not done, the dead would be left in the land of the living.” Well, it wasn’t done but whose fault is that? And how do they get…
Author: Admin
Stephanie Tromly, Trouble is a Friend of Mine, Hot Key Books/Five Mile Press, 1 August 2015, 320pp., $16.95 (pbk), ISBN 978 1 4714 0485 6 It’s hard to believe that this is Tromly’s first novel because it is so well written, so funny and the plot is so gripping and unpredictable. I was completely unable to predict in which direction Tromly would take her readers. If Trouble is a Friend of Mine fits into a particular genre, it would be a vigilante type, comedy detective story, if there is such a thing. However, it also lightly addresses the teenage dilemmas of…
David Miles (text), Natalie Hoops (illus) Book, Familius/Exisle Publishing, 1 August 2015, 32pp., $21.57 (hbk), ISBN: 9781939629654 With echoes of Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, we see a boy climb a rope ladder, enter a world of enchantment and then return via the same rope ladder to the comfort of home. The book opens with an invitation to look closer – and if you do you will notice many things. There are two names hidden in the midst of the Gothic style lettering on the end papers and there are many French phrases and words amongst the collages scattered throughout…
IBBY Australia Honour Books include a first for Translation IBBY Australia proudly announces its biennial Honour Books for 2016. One book is selected for excellence in Writing, one for Illustration, and one for Translation. This is the first time Australia has selected a book in the Translation category. Every two years an Advisory Panel of three children’s literature experts makes the selection from all books published in the period. These outstanding books become Australia’s representative books in a travelling exhibition of about 150 international titles. The exhibition will be shown at the IBBY Congress in Auckland in 2016, and at…
The CBCA Qld Branch has teamed up with Artforce to paint three traffic boxes with children’s literature themes to celebrate ‘Books light up our world’. It was also to highlight 70 years of The Children’s Book Council of Australia. Artforce is a community art project that enables local artists to paint their original works on traffic signal boxes around Brisbane suburbs. Traffic signal boxes are the metal boxes at traffic light intersections that house traffic light electronics. There are 1000 Council controlled boxes in Brisbane. Old boxes are often re-painted when they become weathered and new intersections are popping up…
Ezekiel Kwaymullina (text) Tom Jellett (illus) My Amazing Dad, Little Hare, 1 August 2015, unpaged, $24.95 (hbk), ISBN 9781921894862 The dad’s face is on the front cover and the back of his head is on the back cover, reflecting the two sides of his personality. Told from the daughter’s point of view, we explore the fun of spending time with dad. For this dad is not good at some of the conventional things like mowing the lawn, getting his daughter to school on time, baking a cake and so on but his attempts to do these things turn into something…
Tracey Corderoy (text) Alison Egson (illus) I Want My Daddy!, Little Tiger Press, 4 May 2015, 32pp., $32.99 (hbk) ISBN 9781848690493 No real surprises in the story line. Arthur the young mouse is pretending to be a knight and things go awry – his cardboard castle keeps tumbling down, he hurts himself chasing baddies away on his broomstick horse and at the park he fishes a monster out of the water. Throughout all the events his cry of “I want my daddy” brings his patient father to the rescue with practical advice and assistance. The ending provides a satisfying outcome.…
Catherine Rayner, Abigail, Little Tiger Press, 5 August 2013, 32pp., $32.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781848956469 A friendly cheerful giraffe smiles at you from the front cover. This is Abigail and she loves to count. Her friends ladybird, zebra and cheetah won’t stand still long enough for their spots and stripes to be counted. Ladybird suggests an option but the friends are not good at counting flowers at all. Abigail patiently shows them how to count but it takes all day. There is a happy outcome. The ink and water colour illustrations depict the African setting and the giraffe features and postures…
Sara Shepard, The Good Girls (The Perfectionists #2), Hot Key Books/Five Mile Press, 1 July 2015, 288pp., $16.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781471404320 This book is the sequel to The Perfectionists and picks up exactly where that book left off. In the first book, five senior high school girls, during an in-class discussion, name five people they think deserve to be punished, deserve to die. They decide to prank one of those people, a boy in their year at school who is a cruel bully. The prank goes wrong and the boy dies. Now, in the sequel, people on the list continue…
Jess Vallance, Birdy, Hot Key Books/Five Mile Press, 1 July 2015, 272pp., $16.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781471404665 Birdy is the first novel from Jess Valance, and it’s a powerful debut. Frances Bird is a high school student and a loner. She lives with her elderly grandparents and has never had a real friend. That changes when a new girl starts school and Frances is asked to show her around. Alberta has been home schooled her whole life, and has travelled the world with her parents. She is quite knowledgeable and worldly in some ways, but completely inexperienced in negotiating high school.…