Andrew Pettie (text) and Andrés Lozano (illustrator), Listified! Britannica’s 300 lists that will blow your mind, Britannica Books, September 2021, 414 pp., RRP $21.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781912920747 This is a remarkable book to produce in the age of the internet. At a time when almost all knowledge is available to us at the press of a button on a computer, and at a time when knowledge is changing rapidly and is being almost instantly updated online, why produce a book of facts about the world that will be unwieldy, and will quickly go out of date? Perhaps one answer here…
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David McKee, Elmer and the Bedtime Story, Walker Books Australia, September 2021, 32 pp., RRP $29.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781839130946 Elmer is the distinctive patchwork coloured elephant created by David McKee that has been featuring in children’s picture books since 1989. David has written and illustrated over 30 ‘Elmer’ books, and in 2020 won the ‘Booktrust Lifetime Achievement’ Award. For fans of Elmer books, Elmer and the Bedtime Story will not disappoint; with McKee’s iconic figure of Elmer amongst bright, lively and playful landscapes, each turn of the page exudes a joyful energy. The illustrations themselves have a simple childlike appeal…
Lynette Noni, The Gilded Cage (The Prison Healer, #2), Penguin, September 2021, 448 pp., RRP $24.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781760897536 The Gilded Cage is the second book in Australian author Lynette Noni’s trilogy, The Prison Healer. I strongly recommend reading the first book, The Prison Healer, before attempting this sequel. We are introduced to our heroine, Kiva Meridan in The Prison Healer, and come to admire her as a strong and resourceful young woman. In the words of the blurb, ‘she is a survivor’. In this sequel, Kiva seems to have lost a lot of that strength. She is no longer an…
Phillip Gwynne, The Break, Penguin Random House, September 2021, 384 pp., RRP $19.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780143789383 Taj is an Australian teenager living in Bali with his mother Flick, who runs a fashion empire with stores in numerous countries. His father Kimbo is in Kerobokan Prison under sentence of death for drug smuggling. Kimbo was convicted ten years ago, and a date has been set for his execution. Taj is part of the Bali ex-pat community and spends his spare time surfing, a pastime taught to him by his Dad. When his father’s last hope of reprieve is dashed and the…
Ole Könnecke (text and illustrations) and Shelley Tanaka (translator), Dulcinea In the Forbidden Forest, Gecko Press, September 2021, 64 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781776573950 Dulcinea In the Forbidden Forest is a fairytale featuring a feisty young heroine, a (not-so-bright) father who is turned into a tree and an evil (but also not-particularly-bright) witch. It is Dulcinea’s birthday, and she has requested pancakes with blueberries and whipped cream for breakfast. But neither Dulcinea or her father remembered to buy blueberries from the market! Her father decides to gather some blueberries from the forbidden forest, rationalising that he can’t possibly run…
Lisa Harvey-Smith, Aliens and other Worlds: true tales from our solar system and beyond, Thames & Hudson, September 2021, 108 pp., RRP $29.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781760761165 I couldn’t put this book down. Lisa Harvey-Smith is an astrophysicist and a professor at the University of New South Wales. She writes with flair and talent, and best of all, she brings to her writing a lively curiosity and a ready imagination. She begins her book of twenty-three short chapters with the question, ‘How did life on Earth begin?’ From here, she takes us through stories of evolution, extinction, and on into tales…
Katherine Battersby, Cranky Chicken, Hachette Australia, September 2021, 112 pp., RRP $14.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780734420954 Riffing on the chapter book tradition of unlikely friends, think Elephant and Piggie, Cranky Chicken is a delightful new series for early readers. Created by Katherine Battersby, who is best known for her picture books including the acclaimed Squish Rabbit, the book is a graphic novel for kids aged 6 years plus. The illustrations are child-like with a pastel palette and include lots of visual gags which add to the fun-filled text. Cranky Chicken is quickly won over by a worm, Speedy, who is sunny…
Joy Cowley (text) and Giselle Clarkson (illustrator), The Tiny Woman’s Coat, Gecko Press, September 2021, 28 pp., RRP $22.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781760526894 This charming picture book reminded me in a way of ‘who will help me bake the cake’ but in reverse in the sense that the story is cumulative with the tiny woman asking for help to make a coat; no-one refuses her, however, and the final garment is a triumph of co-operation, friendship, and ingenuity. Each creature and plant she meets along the way contributes something to the coat and its manufacture – leaves, horse hair, a porcupine…
Neridah McMullan (text) and Sarah Anthony (illustrator), Drover, Walker Books Australia, September 2021, 32 pp., RRP $26.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781760652081 Each opened double page of this book is a full colour spread of the landscapes of Australia’s far north. The trees are sparse, sometimes with flocks of wild budgerigars lacing through their tops, and the earth is mostly the pindan red dust, liable to turn to a sticky pliable clay when the rains come. Sara Anthony’s rugged water-colour style sun-drenched images are the highlight of this book. They create a distinctive world where horse, dog and drover work for survival…
Thomas Taylor, Shadowghast, Walker Books Australia, September 2021, 336 pp., RRP $18.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781406386301 In a strange town, with a strange name and strange traditions, everything is about to take a turn for the worse when an unexpected visitor, a stage magician, turns up and claims to be a long lost relative of one Herbert Lemon (Herbie), the local orphan with an unusual past. The magician, Caliastra, has come to take part in a long-held tradition of the town of Eerie-on-Sea. In place of Halloween the people of Eerie-on-Sea celebrate something called Ghastly Night. On this night, the town folk…