Karen Cross, Blown to Rwanda (Banna and Bree #1), Self-published, 7 October 2014, 76pp., $9.95 (pbk), ISBN 9780994164506 Blown to Mission Beach, Australia (Banna and Bree #2), Self-published, 10 October 2014, 84pp., $9.95 (pbk) ISBN 9780994164513 Karen Cross’ deep passion for travel and animal conservation inspired this series about two baboons called Banna and Bree who live in the swampy grasslands of the Okavango Delta. In the first book, they are whisked away by an enchanted wind to the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. They quickly get caught up in a plot to save a silverback gorilla, which has been taken…
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Sally Morgan (text), Ezekiel Kwaymullina (text), Craig Smith (illus.) The Memory Shed, Omnibus/Scholastic, 1 March 2015, 64pp., $9.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781742990347 Behind its bright burnt orange cover is a story of a young girl called Annie and her Grandma. During a terrible storm, Annie is woken by loud creaking. She gets up to find Grandma, who is convinced the creaking is coming from the shed, which has cottoned onto her plans to clear it out, knock it down and build a new one. As the days pass and they clean out the shed, Grandma finds lots of old things she’s forgotten.…
Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon, X: a novel, Candlewick Press, 1 April 2015, 384pp., $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9780763669676 X is a novel about Malcolm X’s early years – from childhood up to his period of imprisonment in his twenties. It’s co-written by one of Malcolm’s daughters. Malcolm grew up in Lansing, Michigan, in the 1930s, one of 8 children. His father was killed when he was six, and his mother sent to a mental hospital when he was thirteen. He lived in several foster homes before moving to Boston to live with his older sister. There he had a rapid…
Pat Clarke (text), Graeme Compton (illus.), Howie the Yowie: adventures of a lovable monster, Little Steps Publishing, 1 October 2014, $24.95 (hbk), ISBN 9781925117165 Howie the Yowie starts out in a way very reminiscent of The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek – a creature, covered in dirt, contemplates his reflection and wonders what he is. Once he discovers he is a yowie, he wants to change as he knows that yowies have a bad reputation. To that end, he befriends a young girl, the daughter of a woodcutter in the forest Howie lives in, and she bathes him, brushes his teeth and…
Verity Croker, May Day Mine, Harmony Ink/Dreamspinner Press, 22 January 2015, 180pp., $14.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781632 167170 Harmony Ink publishes books for homosexual and bisexual teenagers; a group that, no doubt, would like to read bitter-sweet love stories about young people like themselves. I must admit that until I came across Harmony Ink, I had never come across this genre. Homosexual love was only hinted at in the books I read and homosexual characters always played minor parts in the plot, usually a comic one. Jodi, the main character in May Day Mine is sorting out her feelings about her…
Jennifer Bradley (text), Rob Cowan (illus.), Girl with Wings, Jo Jo Publishing, 9 March 2015, 256pp., $18.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9 780992 590185 Jessica Mackay, who lives in Narromine, New South Wales, in 1920, wants to be a pilot. Place-wise this is a great town to build up the skills she needs; there is an airport and an aero club. Time wise it’s not so good. There are very few female pilots about and it is not a career that is considered usual for a girl. However, Jessica is determined to achieve her goal even when she realises that pilots need…
Rosanne Hawke, Kerenza: a new Australian, Omnibus/Scholastic, 1 April 2015, 256pp., $15.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781742 990606 I always enjoy reading history books from a first person point of view, even if the person doesn’t quite exist, so I really enjoyed Kerenza: A New Australian. Kerenza is from Cornwall and the time is 1911. Her da (father) can no longer get work as a miner so Kerenza and most of her family move to South Australia and take up a farming life. Life is very different in the mallee scrub; the temperature, the people she meets, the animals and plants she…
Are you an aspiring children’s book illustrator? Then listen up! The Five Mile Press, one of Australia’s largest children’s publishers, is again offering a $4000 publishing contract to a talented unpublished illustrator! The lucky winner will work with Five Mile Press’s highly skilled editorial and design teams to create a children’s picture book which will be published in 2017. Five Mile Press Managing Director, Alexandra Maramenides, says that nurturing new Australian talent is an essential part of Five Mile’s philosophy. “While we publish more than 180 children’s titles a year (excluding our additional licensing program) and work with authors and…
P Crumble (text) Nathaniel Eckstrom (illus.), Me and Moo, Scholastic, 1 March 2015, 24pp., $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 978 1 743625323 The whimsical text and illustrations in this picture book play perfectly together. ‘Me’ is a charming first person narrator who tells us the story of his unlikely friendship with Moo (an aptly named cow). Moo grew from a baby sleeping under Me’s bed to a problematic mountain with Me’s bed tenuously perched on the top – whereupon mum laid down rules. The captivating illustrations are of cute, stylised, blocky big-headed characters in a muted palette of earthy and blue…
Ambica Ananthan (text) Bookworks.inc (illus.) Ria and Sophia (the Fairy) in Treasure Hunt Lightening Source, 16 February 2015, 30pp., $24.50 (pbk), ISBN 9780994250902 Digitally created images colourfully illustrate this book which tells a simple story about animal disguises. One day a fairy magically appears to Ria and her friends and invites them on a treasure hunt. Along the way they encounter things in nature that are not quite what they seem, before finding the treasure and being whisked back home to bed. The book is colourful: each opening has a text page with black writing on lime green background opposite a…