Mandy Coe (ed), Let in the Stars: new poetry for children, Manchester Writing School/Manchester Metropolitan University Press, July 2014, 86pp., ISBN: 9781910029008 A collection of beautifully illustrated, inspiring poems for children, Let in the Stars, is the end result of a competition promoted by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duff and her team at the Manchester Writing School; attracting thousands of submissions world wide from which 30 were chosen from such places as Uganda, the USA, Australia, Canada, the UK. Encompassing a wide range of styles from story poems or those that rely on sound, to poems that play with language…
Author: Admin
Sue Saliba, For the Forest of a Bird, Penguin Books, 28 January 2015, $17.99(pbk) 208pp., ISBN: 9780143571780 The swallows return every spring, it gives Nella comfort and hope, something she can rely on since her father’s leaving and her mother becoming ill. Fifteen year old Nella loves the natural world; hearing and feeling its wonder she escapes as often as she can from the suffocating environment of her inner city Melbourne home to the nearby creek lands. Here Nella can sleep, dream and have flights of fantasy, like the swallows, imagining a future in which her father will return and they can share…
Patrick Loughlin, State Showdown (Glenn Maxwell #3) and World Domination (Glenn Maxwell #4), Random House Australia, 2 February 2015, $14.99(pbk), also in eBook, 192pp., ISBNs 9780857986115 and 9780857986139 This series is for kids who love cricket. It focuses on a cricket-mad boy, Will Albright. and his legendary cricketing hero, Glenn Maxwell. In book 3 of this series, State Showdown, Will has achieved his dream of being chosen for the Victorian state team and he is determined to do his best, if only he can remember to play as part of a team. In World Domination, Will is selected to captain the…
Stephanie Owen Reeder, Lennie The Legend: solo to Sydney by pony, NLA Publishing, 1 February 2015, $24.99, 108pp., ISBN 9780642278654 During 1932, in just over four months, a young boy called Lennie Gwyther, rode his pony, Ginger Mick, from Victoria to the newly finished Sydney Harbour Bridge. He was 9 years old. Along the way, word spread and his story became famous, so that by the time he arrived in Sydney, he was invited to be part of the opening ceremony and one of the first to cross this engineering marvel. Stephanie has created an exciting narrative of Lennie’s…
Emer Stamp, The Super Amazing Adventures of Me, Pig, Scholastic, 1 January 2015, $12.99(pbk), 192pp., ISBN 978 1407155982 It is difficult to see how a farm full of animals finding a new home and better conditions in the UK countryside would have an immediate appeal to the young Australian reader. The mangled grammar of pig speak in which the story is told does not sit well with an older generation who may be called upon to read such a tale. Comic book meets scribble pad in a belaboured attempt at humour. reviewed by Chris Dayman
Lorraine Marwood, Celebrating Australia: a year in poetry, Walker Books, 1 January 2015, $16.95(pbk), 128pp., ISBN 978 1 925081 022 Beginning with New Year and wending its way through Easter, Bastille Day, Ramadan, United Nations Day and a round up of weddings, parties and a lullaby, this neat little compendium has a wealth of upbeat messages to read and share. Rich language, unexpected points of view, sympathetic illustrations and black and white photos make this a great starter for younger readers setting out to become writers. Diwali, Grandparents Day and Halloween all add up to a must have in classrooms and…
Shona Innes (text) Irisz Agocs (illustrations), The Playground is Like the Jungle (A Big Hug Book), Five Mile Press, January 2015, $14.95, 32pp., ISBN 978 176006 4150 This is one of a series of three books written to support positive interventions in early childhood behaviours. As such it has a rather dogged and prescriptive approach and falls below the uplifting tenor of a book written by a dedicated and imaginative children’s author. The jungle is a curious mix of a world of animals who certainly seem ill at ease in one another’s company. It feels very much like a story…
Katherine Kirkland, A Great Big Dinosaur Adventure, Koala Books, 1 July 2015, 15.99(pbk), 32pp., ISBN 978 1 74276 134 3 Katherine Kirkland is an American-born British illustrator whose work is published internationally. While she often illustrates other people’s texts, in this book she has created both story and pictures. It tells the story of Oli, an oligokyphus which was a pre-mammalian animal. He sets out on his birthday to find the scariest dinosaur ever. None of his friends wants to come so he ventures forth on his own. The first creature he encounters is a dryosaurus. Three of them accompany…
David J Smith (text), Steve Adams (illustrations) iF…: A mind-bending new way of looking at big ideas and numbers, New Frontier Publishing, 1 February 2015, $29.99(hbk), 40pp., ISBN 9781925059267 Originally published by Kids Can Press, this excellent picture book by two Canadian creators is well worth a look. What it attempts to do is to scale down some very large concepts to everyday objects to try to give young readers a sense of the proportions of these things and their component parts. For example, the planets of our solar system are compared to each other in size by showing them as…
Joe Ducie, Crystal Force (The Rig #2), Hot Key Books/Five Mile Press, 2 April 2015, $16.95(pbk), 368pp., ISBN: 9781471404559 Will Drake, Irene Finlay and Michael Tristan have escaped from the rig where the Alliance were keeping them prisoner. The crystal substance Will and Drake have been exposed to has created powerful forces within them – the ability to heal for Irene, but a much more dangerous effect for Will. Gradually, the crystal force is consuming him, making the destructive power within him grow. Will battles the Alliance in an attempt to return to London where his mother is in need of…