CAROLANE, Sue Aa is for Alpacas Jojo Pub, 2014 unpaged $16.99 pbk ISBN 9780987463593 SCIS 1653892 Sue Carolane has had over 30 years as a speech pathologist working in pre-school, primary and secondary education. She has written this book in response to her observations of the high number of children experiencing difficulty in learning to read, write and spell. She is a powerful advocate for the essential pre-reading experience of reading with young children and making them familiar with books and how they work and developing early language skills. She stresses the importance of the relationship between the written letter…
Author: Admin
State Finals for The Children’s Book Council of Australia Readers Cup competitions have recently been held in both Tasmania and Queensland. Readers Cup is generally a competition in which teams of students read a set of books, and then compete with other school or public library teams to answer quiz questions about the books. Involvement with Readers Cup is both a hectic and rewarding experience for all the volunteers giving their time. Regional competitions are organised and run, then State Finals. It’s a long process, but a fun process. In Queensland over 400 primary and secondary schools are involved in…
Goldie Alexander talks to Reading Time about the difficulties of writing a verse novel… We live in an age where more people are being published but fewer have time to read. It’s not helped by increasing length. Woody Allen once insisted all his films last only ninety minutes. If one could only say that about books. As a firm believe in ‘the pinch test’, recently I became interested in verse novels. I was fascinated by the idea that a novel of some sixty to eighty thousand words could be condensed into less than a third, sometimes even less. It seemed…
The Express Media Award winning Younger Young Writers’ Program (YYWP) is back for another barnstorming year. The YYWP is a series of events for young writers (aged 13-17 years old) at the very beginning of their career paths. Starting in September and finishing in November, the YYWP will connect writers online and open up the National Young Writers’ Festival for young people unable to attend the October long weekend program in Newcastle. This year the program is even bigger and better, with support from the wonderful Centre for Youth Literature, this years participants will have access to exclusive programs…
HOBAN, Russell (text) Alexis Deacon (illus.) Jim’s Lion Walker, 2014 unpaged $19.95 ISBN 9781406346022 SCIS 1660697 Like so much of Hoban’s work this book works largely through suggestion: the seemingly simple text and more especially the many copious, representational and chimerical illustrations stimulate the mind and the imagination. The eponymous Jim is in hospital watching the snow whirling out of the grey sky, symbolic of the state of Jim’s mind that is yet to summon up a vast array of fantastical images. Jim’s carer and companion is Nurse Bami from Africa. She has seen, and obviously described, exotic animals that…
FRAILLON, Zana No Stars to Wish On Allen & Unwin, 2014 167pp $15.99 pbk ISBN 9781743315149 SCIS 1657186 In an unidentified country and time, a small deaf boy and his siblings are taken from their village home and put into a harshly regimented ‘Home’ run by nuns, into separate areas where there is no communication between them. Another sister is taken off somewhere else in a truck. No reason is given why these children have been removed from their family, although it is obvious that they lived in extreme poverty. The boy, Jack, is bewildered to be identified only as…
DiCAMILLO, Kate (text) K. G. Campbell (illus.) Flora and Ulysses; The Illuminated Adventures Candlewick Press, 2013 232pp $19.95 1SBN 9780763660406 SCIS 1631725 ‘Illuminated’ occurs in the title because of the mostly grey, wonderful cartoon-like illustrations, that are integral to, rather than simply extending, the text. In the very best sense they light up the words on the page to become commentaries on the story line. These eye-arresting and comic images are quietly satiric, mostly a wry, commentary on the text, so they add to the sophistication of the book itself. Subtle verbal asides occur frequently; and are part of the…
CREW, Gary (text) Naomi Turvey (illus.) The Cuckoo Ford St, 2014 unpaged $29.95 ISBN 9781925000177 SCIS 1653478 Martin is the runt of the family. Abandoned by his mother and ridiculed by his cruel father and brothers, he seeks solace in the forest and dreams of flying free like the eagles. When his vain brothers become prey to those same eagles Martin witnesses his father’s anguish. Blaming himself, he returns to the forest intent on taking his life but comes across a pile of bones and feathers, the carcass of an eaglet. Martin feels akin with the dead bird and vows…
What’s your goal with reading? To read every day? To finish a book a week? To read Tolstoy or Dickens? The Indigenous Literacy Foundation’s goal is to spread the joys of reading to kids in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across the length and breadth of Australia. That’s why they are launching their new Get Caught Reading! campaign, to share their passion for books and raise urgently needed funds. Their goal is $10,000 for Indigenous Literacy Day. Books are amazing! They help us learn, escape to new worlds, and most importantly they expand our horizons. For as little as $10…
CONNELLY, Nicola (text) Annie White (illus.) My Dad is a Bear New Frontier, 2014 unpaged $24.99 ISBN 9781925059069 SCIS 1673970 This charming picture book uses all the characteristics of a bear to identify the many things that make a dad so special. Each page combines a minimal amount of large print text and simple illustrations that focus on the bear and his characteristics. The reader is not distracted by any background art so all attention is on what the bear is doing, perfect for the very young readers. The storyline is simple and it would be the perfect book for…