Margery Williams Bianco (text), Helene Magisson (illus.), The Velveteen Rabbit, New Frontier Publishing, 1 March 2015, $27.99(hbk), 48pp., ISBN 9781925059304 First published in 1922, this classic tale is re-imagined in the wonderful drawings of French-Australian illustrator Helene Magisson. The gentle story of a velveteeen rabbit who becomes “real” through the enduring love of his owner is presented in muted blues and greens which exude a warmth and charm that will attract even the youngest of children while they are having the story read to them. Magisson delicately captures the various moods of the tale with subtle changes of the rabbit’s…
Author: Admin
Krista Rausin (text), Muza Ulasowski (illus), Elle & Buddy, Peter E. Randall, 2 March 2015, $11.17 (pbk), 32pp., ISBN 978-1-942155-00-3 Timid Elle is afraid of going on a Ferris wheel, but when she sees a boy flashing around the athletics track in a racing wheelchair she decides that being wheel bound will not stop her becoming the fastest girl in the world. Elle is given a racing chair and her dream of speeding around sidewalks and seaside pathways is fulfilled. Krista Rausin’s text conveys the story with economy and polished directness. Her use of words like “flying”, “whooshed” and “soaring”…
Jane Higgins, Havoc (Southside #2), Text Publishing, 25 February 2015, $19.99 (pbk), 342pp., ISBN 978922147295 A river divides a city and a war wages between the impoverished Southside and the more powerful and affluent Cityside. A tenuous ceasefire is broken when Cityside destroy Moldam bridge and the main character, Nik Stais, finds a dazed young girl wandering in the wreckage repeating the word “havoc” . Nik, together with his friend Lanya and conman Sandor, risk their lives to cross the river to discover the link between this cryptic warning and Cityside’s latest plans to destroy Southside. Their secret mission leads…
J.C. Jones, Run, Pip, Run. Allen & Unwin, 1 April 2015, $12.99 (pbk), 193pp., ISBN: 9781743319222 Ten-year-old Pip becomes homeless when her adopted grandfather, Sully, has a stroke and is taken to hospital. Fiercely independent and terrified of being put in care Pip takes to a life on the streets while waiting for Sully to recover enough to allow them both to return home. While on the run Pip is constantly challenged: even something as simple as going to the toilet presents problems. In her struggle she is helped by a variety of people; Matilda, a classmate, Mr Blair, her teacher,…
Gordon Winch (text), Harriet Bailey (illus.), The Last Anzac, New Frontier Publishing, 1 March 2015, $24.99 (hbk), 32pp., ISBN 9781925059298 This is an account of the visit paid to the last surviving ANZAC Alec Campbell by James and his father in 2001. Alec enlisted as a sixteen-year-old having lied about his age. After time in Egypt he was sent to Gallipoli where he didn’t take part in the fighting but carried stores and water from the beach to the trenches. After six weeks he became ill and was sent home to Australia. To James he was a hero. Brief…
Anna Pignataro, Our Love Grows, Scholastic, 1 March 2015, $16.99, 24pp., ISBN: 9781743626269 Baby panda asks mother ‘when will I be big?’ and the book is a reply to that question. Through the pages that follow baby panda is shown how he grows and changes and that therefore everything is slightly different from what it was before. His toy is now smaller, the tree is bigger, his paw print is no longer tiny and his ‘Blanky’ used to cover all of him but now definitely doesn’t. Pignataro has used rhyming text with an occasional hiccup in the rhythm to describe changes…
Tohby Riddle The Greatest Gatsby: a visual book of grammar Viking/Penguin, 25 March 2015, $24.99 (pbk), 112pp., ISBN 9780670078684 The introduction is wonderful and deserves to be quoted: ‘Like electricity or the soul, grammar is invisible. But when it is present among a group of words, language comes to life…’.The author explains that grammar is order, that it makes sense, and that it is structure because when words are put together well they carry meaning. The following pages show classes of words, phrases and clauses. Then the author develops the concept of sentences and how they should be formed and can…
Tania McCartney (text), Christina Booth (illus.) This is Captain Cook National Library of Australia, 1 March 2015, $24.99, 40pp., ISBN 9780642278692 If young children could not see the illustrations and were only able to hear the story text they would hear the tale of Captain James Cook – from his childhood, to his sea voyages and explorations, told in a lively way. There are appealing incidental elements that tell how he liked his shiny buttons and that he was given a Secret Letter instructing him to find the Great South Land. In this picture book, however, much of the action and fun…
Loretta Re, Stand Up and Cheer: a fierce storm, a lost plane, a flicker of hope, Wild Colonial Company, 1 February 2015, $14.99 (pbk), $6.99 (ebook), 205pp., ISBN: 9780992306922 In Stand Up and Cheer, Loretta Re brings to life a largely forgotten episode in Australian aviation history – the London to Melbourne air race. In 1933, confectionery company founder Macpherson Robertson, announced his sponsorship of an air race as part of Melbourne’s centenary celebrations to be held the following year. The race, offering £15,000 in prize money, attracted 20 entrants from around the globe. Re’s story, told through the eyes…
Gregory Mackay, Anders and the Comet, Allen & Unwin, 1 January 2015, $12.99 (pbk), 160pp., ISBN 81760111151 Anders and the Comet begins on the last day of school term with the arrival of a new student, Bernie. Anders immediately befriends Bernie and the two characters, along with Anders’s cousin Eden, embark on a raft of holiday adventures. And what adventures they are – from finding a space observatory in the forest and discovering a comet in the night sky, to flying through the air with a glow-in-the-dark beetle and being whisked away by a windblown jumping castle. The combination of…