Satoshi Kitamura, Lily Takes A Walk, Scallywag Press, September 2021, 28 pp., RRP $22.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781912650682 This picture book was first published in the UK in 1987 and has been released in a new edition by Scallywag Press. Lily loves going for walks with her dog Nicky. Some days they walk for so long that it’s getting dark by the time they are heading home. On this particular day, Lily has stopped to do some shopping for her mother, and dusk is falling as they are on their return journey. Despite the gloaming, Lily is never afraid when she…
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Kathryn Apel (text) and Mandy Foot (illustrator), What Snail Knows, University of Queensland Press, March 2022, 224 pp., RRP $14.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780702265464 It’s not often that kids in junior fiction come from homes where parents struggle to put food on the table. But this is the territory covered with humility and grace in Kathryn Apel’s latest verse novel What Snail Knows. Lucy lives with her dad in a caravan park and since the death of her mum, her father has encouraged her to keep to herself. ‘We do all right, Lucy,’ Dad said. ‘just you and me.’ It’s no…
Kat Patrick (text) and Hayley Wells (illustrator), The Spectacular Suit, Scribble Kids’ Books, August 2021, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781742035918 It’s almost Frankie’s birthday and her party has been planned and organised to the last detail. It’s the first time she’s asked for a party and she wants everything to be just right! Her mother, brother and sister are all helping out so that it will be a big success. There’s only one thing left to decide on – her outfit. Her mother gives her three dresses to choose from, but Frankie hates them all. She wants something…
Suzy Zail (text) and Christopher Nielsen (illustrator), Arabella’s Alphabet Adventure, Walker Books, March 2022, 32 pp., RRP $25.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781760652425 Arabella’s Alphabet Adventure is author Suzy Zail’s first foray into picture books, being already renowned for award winning YA fiction. Christopher Nielsen, who was shortlisted for a CBCA Crichton Award in 2018, is the book’s illustrator. Several punchy sounding alliterations and vivid verbal descriptors achieve a succinct and imaginative telling of an adventure story about a personified alphabet picture book called Arabella’s Alphabet Adventure. The book character is unhappy because, despite being the most borrowed book in the library,…
R.A. Spratt, Shockingly Good Stories, Penguin Random House, July 2021, 240 pp., RRP $19.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781761043376 My family are largely unfamiliar with the character Friday Barnes, heroine of R. A. Spratt’s best-selling series of the same name. After reading Shockingly Good Stories we are regretting this unfamiliarity. Shockingly Good Stories features fractured fairy tales, Friday Barnes mysteries and anecdotes told by the world’s most glamorous flying pig, Nanny Piggins. As my children have gotten older and developed their own reading tastes we have fallen out of the practice of me reading aloud to them at bedtime in favour of…
Charles Hope, Power Up!, Wild Dog Books, July 2021, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781742035918 This information book sets out to explain the different ways electricity is made. It starts by explaining why it is needed, what it is used for, and the difference between power and energy. It looks at how human beings have used energy throughout history, and how the industrial revolution ramped up energy usage in Europe and North America. Next, the different kinds of energy sources are detailed, including pros and cons of each. This includes some lesser used sources such as tidal and wave…
Pamela Rushby, Interned, Walker Books, March 2022, 256 pp., RRP $17.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781760653019 A story told in the alternating voices of Gretta and Tilly, two young girls of German origin who have been wrenched from their comfortable, happy lives to find themselves interned in a camp in rural NSW during WW1 and classed as enemy aliens. Gretta comes from a life of privilege in Singapore, her dad a wealthy businessman. She had hopes of returning to Germany to follow her dream of studying music before the war broke out. Tilly comes from a more modest home life in Brisbane.…
Caroline Magerl, Piano Fingers, Walker Books, March 2022, 32 pp., RRP $26.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781760652616 The joy of music is a rarely explored theme in picture books and Caroline Magerl’s gorgeous new creation is a welcome addition. The illustrations, created with watercolour, pencil and ink, capture Magerl’s trademark quirk and heart and add to the slightly surreal feel of the story. Magerl is perhaps best known for the delightful picture book, Maya and Cat, which was short-listed for several awards. Bea comes from a big musical family and is on the hunt for an instrument that sings to her. When…
Monica McInerney (text) and Danny Snell (illustrator), Marcie Gill and the Caravan Park Cat, Puffin, November 2021, 256 pp., RRP $19.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781760894139 Marcie Gill and the Caravan Park Cat is a heartwarming family-oriented book that both children and adults will adore! The story is set in the idyllic (fictional) South Australian beach town of Snorkel Bay. Ten-year-old Marcie lives in the local caravan park that her family manages. She has a number of responsibilities in the day-to-day running of the park and is a friendly face for their guests. Life is busy and complicated! Marcie has a mother,…
Antoinette Portis, Hey, Water!, Scallywag Press, August 2021, 44 pp., RRP $16.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781912650606 This picture book was first published in the US in 2019. It is part story, part information book for the very young. A young girl is talking about water, celebrating and enjoying it in all its forms – liquid, solid, gas. In a series of double page spreads, she lists the places she finds water in her every day life, and how it moves and changes in those places, and how she and other people interact with it. At the very end of the book…