Frances Watts (text), and David Legge (illustrator), It’s a Story, Rory!, ABC Books, July 2018, 32 pp., $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9780733335938 “It starts with a blank page”, Watts and Legge continue their conversation, (Parsley Rabbit’s Book about Books) exploring what makes a story? Rory the fox and Milly the chicken de-construct their own small adventure into its technical parts – narration, character, setting, action, plot, atmosphere, so that the telling of the tale becomes the book itself. A neat idea that teaches and encourages creative storytelling. The illustrations are computer generated, slick and surreally detailed on some pages, lesser so and…
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Julia Donaldson (text), and David Roberts (illustrator), The Cook and the King, Pan Macmillan, July 2018, 32 pp., $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781509813773 So prolific is world renowned author, Julia Donaldson (The Gruffalo), that she has several illustration partnerships working on concurrent releases. Her collaborations with artist David Roberts (Andrea Beaty’s Iggy Peck Architect series) are totally charming. This larger format picture book is a light delight of easy rhyming verse and detailed yet delicate drawings. Roberts bring a fashion designer’s sense of pattern and compositional space to beautiful effect with flavoursome expansion of Donaldson’s text. A simple story, of an unhappy King…
Elizabeth Mary Cummings (text), and Cheri Hughes (illustrator), The Forever Kid, Big Sky Publishing, September 2018, 32 pp., RRP $14.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781925675382 The Forever Kid is a picture book about grief. Told in the first person, the narrator is a child who talks about his deceased brother Johnny – a “forever-kid” because he will never grow up. He describes how his family keeps his deceased brother’s memory alive by celebrating his birthday and reminiscing about the things they loved to do with him. In few words, Cummings skilfully describes common grief experiences with compassion and gentleness – wistful sadness, the…
Davina Bell (text) and Karen Blair (illustrator), Lemonade Jones, Allen & Unwin, August 2018, 64 pp., RRP $19.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781925266733 Award winning author, Davina Bell, has created a new story book character named Lemonade Jones. Lemonade is a feisty, noisy, exuberant and impulsive child who doesn’t like rules. This first book in the series about Lemonade Jones consists of two stories. In the first story, titled “The first day back”, we meet Lemonade as she is starting year one at a new school. Despite her confidence and enthusiasm, she soon encounters one frustration after another. A squabble with her old nemesis…
Paul Jennings, A Different Boy, Allen & Unwin, August 2018, 96 pp., RRP $14.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781760523503 Well known, award winning author, Paul Jennings, brings young readers another survival story about a courageous, strong protagonist grappling in a perilous situation. When Anton is admitted as an orphan to a brutal boy’s institution, he thinks of his father’s words – “If you’ve got a bad deal, get out of it and move on”. So, he takes the first opportunity to escape and board an ocean liner bound for the “The New Land” of his dead parents’ dreams– “a warm, sunburnt country of…
Hilary Rogers and Joshie Lefers (text), and Pete Petrovic (illustrator), Bad Apple (The Frooties, #1), Scholastic Australia, September 2018, 18 pp., RRP $12.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781742765952 Hilary Rogers and Joshie Lefers (text), and Pete Petrovic (illustrator), Crazy Kiwi (The Frooties, #2), Scholastic Australia, September 2018, 18 pp., RRP $12.99 (pbk), ISBN 978174276997 It’s a whole bunch of crazy in the fruit bowl! What’s your favourite fruit? Bet it’s not kiwi fruit. No wonder Kiwi goes bananas! This new quirky series from creative duo Hilary Rogers and Joshie Lefers is jam packed with crazy, fruit-flavoured, not to mention funny, mayhem. Each book…
Jack Heath, The Truth App (Liars, #1), Scholastic Australia, September 2018, 240 pp., RRP $9.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781743817766 The Truth App is the first instalment of the Liars five-book series by best-selling teen author, Jack Heath. The subsequent books in the series (No Survivors, The Set-Up, Lockdown, and Armageddon) will follow shortly and are set to be as heart-stopping and technologically accomplished as book one. The old man was now so close that he couldn’t miss. He raised his pistol and took aim at Jarli. So Jarli jumped off the cliff. This action-packed story follows teenage app developer Jarli, whose life quickly…
Sally Odgers (text), and Adele K Thomas (illustrator), Pearl the Magical Unicorn, Scholastic Australia, July 2018, 128 pp., RRP $9.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781742993133 Pearl is a magical unicorn who wants to use her magic to help her friends but Pearl’s magic doesn’t always go to plan. Her friends, Tweet and Olive, encourage Pearl to keep trying. Many mishaps later, Pearl worries that her magic may actually endanger her friends and decides to be just plain Pearl. However the group find themselves in a stinky situation with mischievous gobble-uns. Will Pearl be able to use her magic to save her friends?…
Ronojoy Ghosh, Charlie, Random House Australia, July 2018, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9780143785026 Charlie is a worldly lion who loves to explore the city but he realises people fear him. So Charlie concocts a disguise. The tongue-in-cheek humour in this simple tale lies in the concept that this cultured lion would rather eat cake than people; and in the illustrations, where the reader can see through the meagre disguise, yet the other characters cannot. Readers may also recognise another lion from an award winning picture book among the beautiful stylized illustrations. They could further explore the concept of ‘disguise’,…
Steven Herrick, The Bogan Mondrian, University of Queensland Press, September 2018, 256 pp., RRP $19.95 (pbk), ISBN 9780702259982 Unlike many of Herrick’s books, this one is not a verse novel. It is a coming-of-age story told in first-person narrative by Luke, a boy who comes from ‘the wrong side of the tracks’. He befriends Charlotte, daughter of wealthy parents who have just moved to the town where Luke lives with his widowed mother. Mother and boy have a loving relationship and are happy together despite their deep grief over Luke’s father’s death. This is very different to Charlotte’s household where both…