Laura Henry-Allain (text) and Onyinye Iwu (illustrator), My Skin, Your Skin, Penguin Random House Australia, November 2021, 32 pp., RRP $19.99 (hbk), ISBN 9780241512739 People can be anything they want to be – race has nothing to do with what someone can achieve. My Skin, Your Skin is an empowering, illustrated information text that invites discussion surrounding racism and anti-racism. Author Laura Henry-Allain Mbe appeals to an early reader audience, using child-friendly terminology to cover what racism looks like and how to stop it. Onyinye Iwu’s vivid illustrations capture the importance of celebrating our differences, encouraging self-love and appreciation of…
Author: Admin
Lesley Parr, When the War Came Home, Bloomsbury, March 2022, 320 pp., RRP $14.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781526621009 When the War Came Home is set in the period after the first World War and is told through the eyes of a young Welsh girl called Natty. It is the second children’s novel from Welsh author, Lesley Parr. When Natty’s Mum loses her job at the factory and is unable to pay the rent, they must move to another village and live with Natty’s Aunt, Uncle, and cousins. Though unhappy with her Mum for the upheaval and adjusting to life with her…
Teena Raffa-Mulligan, The Parent Tamer, Dixi Books, November 2021, 128 pp., RRP $29.50 (pbk), ISBN 9781913680282 What if your parents spent all their time being silly and having fun instead of being responsible adults? They won’t get out of bed in time for work, squabble over everything, mess up the house, play on their screens instead of doing their jobs, keep Mike awake all night with karaoke and have even started wagging work. Mike thinks his parents are embarrassing and he’s had enough of being the sensible one in the family. It’s time to get some help – enter Talibut…
Trudie Trewin (text) and Nelli Suneli (illustrator), Grandma’s Prickly Secret, Larrikin House, August 2021, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781922503268 A rhyming romp for the very young that takes the reader on a little boy’s zany imaginings of how to help his grandmother feel ok about aging when he discovers she is trying to pluck out her chin hairs: perhaps she could tie them to her glasses so they don’t get lost, or thread them with beads to make them look pretty. Could they become dog leads, or a fishing line? The possibilities are endless… Nelli Sundli’s bold, humours…
Andrea Rowe (text) and Hannah Sommerville (illustrator), Jetty Jumping, Hardie Grant Children’s Publishers, January 2021, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781760500658 In the bay of a sun-kissed little town, Milla and a group of coast kids spend their weekends jetty jumping. Whilst her friends leap from the jetty into the cool, saltwater below, Milla stays behind, perched on the blistering wood, wondering what lurks beneath her in the deep, dark sea. Bonnie twirls, Clementine dives, Matilda horseys, Clancy corkscrews. But not Milla… Milla dangles her legs, bites her lip and twists her bracelet, out on the end of the…
Nick Bland, Walk of the Whales, Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing, October 2021, 32 p., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781760509026 When the whales walked out of the ocean and into the cities and towns, well what should we do? Provide all the krill we could and make our trains larger? Nick Bland has delivered a beautifully crafted, original, and thought-provoking story about ocean pollution with imagination, truth, and humour. The serious subject of waste building up in our oceans has been cleverly tackled by this simple story as it seeks to explain to this young audience how humanity, and our lifestyle,…
Margaret Wild & Dan Wild (text) and Donna Rawlins (illustrator), The Amazing Meals of Martha Maloney, Walker Books Australia, September 2021, 32 pp., RRP $25.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781921529238 An amusing, well-researched and quirky insight into the dietary habits and foibles of significant historical figures. Set within a recount of a school excursion to a museum and the imagination of narrator, Martha Maloney, the text is engaging, humorous and fast paced as she takes us into the dining tables of the past. The juxtaposition of the teacher’s frustration with her students and Martha Maloney’s imagination is authentic and creative. Margaret Wild…
Kelli Anne Hawkins (text) and Beth Harvey (illustrator), The School for Talking Pets, HarperCollins Publishers, September 2021, 336 pp., RRP $16.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781460759202 Pets are the source of love, hate, joy, amusement and so many emotions felt by humans. The School for Talking Pets is a story of children who love their pets and regard them as friends, especially when they feel lonely. The School for Talking Pets is the imagined premise of pets talking to their human owners. The main protagonist twelve-year-old Australian boy Rusty Mulligan is desperate for his blue tongued lizard to speak. ‘Then we could…
George Ivanoff, The Supernatural Survival Guide, Penguin Random House Australia, September 2021, 176 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781761043635 This humorous non-fiction text is the third in the ‘survival’ series by this author. Jam packed with facts about the supernatural, it will appeal to most young readers’ fascination for all things weird and creepy. Narrated by an avatar, the conversational tone delivers information in an accessible way. There are four main sections: “They Came From Outta This World…Maybe’, ‘Beastly Stuff’, ‘From Beyond The Grave’ and ‘Everything Else (All Of It Weird). Within each section are specific chapters which in turn…
Simon Farnaby (author) and Claire Powell (Illustrator), The Warrior in my Wardrobe, Hachette, October 2021, 384 pp., RRP $16.99 (pbk), ISBN9781444954395 As much as young Rose squabbles with her infuriatingly annoying brother Kris, when she returns home to find their house trashed and Kris mysteriously vanished, she will do anything to get him back. That includes time travelling alongside her pooping pet guinea pig, Bubbles, back to the Dark Ages to rescue kidnapped Kris. With the help of badly behaved wizard Merdyn the Great and his talking pet wolf, Rose and Bubbles navigate Transylvania in the year 521, tackling obstacles…