Mitchell Starc (text), Philip Bunting (illus.), Clash of the Keepers! (Mighty Mitch #3), Scholastic Australia, June 2018, 144 pp., RRP $12.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781742769158 Clash of the Keepers! is the 3rd book in the Mighty Mitch series about international cricketer, Mitchell Starc, as an Under 10s cricketer. The events of this third book centre around Mitch’s interpersonal conflict with a keen U10 wicketkeeper from New Zealand, named Marshall Spark. Mitch and his fellow Wombats team members first meet Marshall at a cricket coaching clinic where he annoys them with his opinionated and unwanted advice and criticism. To make matters worse, he beats…
Author: Admin
Anh Do (text), Dan McGuiness (illus.) Game Time! (Hotdog #4), Scholastic Australia, 1 June 2018, 128pp., $12.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781760279035 Hotdog, Kev and Lizzy are friends. They have fun together and are there for each other when things are tough; that’s why they want to help Kev. Kev is sad because he misses his mum, a doctor who works on Rainbow Island a long, long way away. When the friends come across a poster in the local park for a Game Day competition they figure this might just be the answer as the big prize is none other than a…
James O’Loghlin (text), Matthew Martin (illus.), The New Kid: Unpopular Me, Pan Macmillan Australia, 29 May 2018, 224pp., $9.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781760554255 When eleven year old Sam moves with his parents from Adelaide to Canberra he finds he is the ‘underdog’ at his new school in more ways than one. Being the new kid in class is never easy, especially when your only friend seems to be someone who no one else wants to know. And then there’s the fact Sam sucks at reading and has to attend a ‘special class’. Not a great start. But Sam is resilient, he…
Nicola Davies (text), Emily Sutton (illus.), A First Book of The Sea, Walker Books Australia, 1 July 2018, 104pp., $29.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781406368956 Every possible shade of blue washes against poems of ochre and yellow, tropical green and soft pink in this latest collaboration between Nicola Davis and Emily Sutton. A clear lover of all things to do with the sea, Davis, a graduate in zoology with experience in the Natural History Unit at the BBC brings a passion and wealth of knowledge to her poems to inspire a wonder in the very young and perhaps not so young. Bringing…
Jaylon Tucker, Cheryl Kickett-Tucker, Jessica Lister, and Tjalaminu Mia, Bush and Beyond: Stories from Country, May 2018, 136pp., $14.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781925591132 This collection of stories, featuring grandparents and replete with indigenous mythology, is an enjoyable read for middle primary students. The stories have kids taking adventures, tramping through the bush, and include black and white line drawings. Indigenous words with English translations – such as koolbardi (magpie) and doornart (parrot) – add to the cultural learning. My personal favourite was the scary tale of the woordatj; a hairy creature that lives in a cave. ‘One of his jobs is to make…
Trish Donald, Tissywoo and the Worry Monsters, Little Pink Dog Books, 1 Feb 2018, 36pp., $24.95 (hbk), ISBN: 9780994626943 Tissywoo is a young girl who is excited about her first day of school. But her excitement quickly turns into worry as she wonders “what will school be like?” and “will she make friends?” Her anxiety turns into a worry monster which grows and multiplies until she is scared. Tissywoo remembers to slow her breathing, filling her body with breath “all the way down to her fingers and toes.” She practises this breathing until the monsters disappear and she feels calm. The…
Mac Barnett & Jon Klassen, Square, Walker Books Australia, 1 May 2018, 32pp., $24.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781406378658 Square spends his days taking square blocks from his underground cave and putting them in a pile at the top of a hill. When Circle discovers Square’s work, she declares he is an artistic genius and asks him to make a sculpture of herself. Square struggles with the task and despairs, believing he has failed. But the surprise outcome of his efforts is, like this book, beautiful, beguiling and perfect. This is a brilliant book. It is so simple, yet contains a message that…
A L Kennedy (text), Gemma Correll (illus.), Uncle Shawn and Bill and the Pajimminy-Crimminy Unusual Adventure (Uncle Shawn and Bill #2), Walker Books Australia, 1 June 2018, 272pp., $17.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781406360509 What a cast of characters! There’s Uncle Shawn and his best friend Bill (the Badger), some crazy llamas, an invisible girl, a pirate boy and some spiders. There’s also evil Dr P’Klawz, who wants to squish all Unusualness out of the world. Unfortunately, Dr P’Klawz has his eyes set on Uncle Shawn, who he decides is not only Unusual, but Pajimminy-Crimminy Unusual. When Dr P’Klawz arrests Uncle Shawn and…
Rina A Foti (text), David Atze (illus.), Cat Spies Mouse, Big Sky Publishing, 1 June 2018, 32pp., $24.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781925675351 Cat Spies Mouse is about a bold mouse who seeks to challenge the norm and make the world a better place. But mostly, doesn’t want to be eaten. When Cat comes along, he sees no reason as to why he shouldn’t gobble Mouse. Mouse of course, begs to differ. Cat insists but ends up, literally, as a dog’s breakfast. Mouse turns his efforts to persuading Dog to be nicer and eventually succeeds and the three characters become friends. This is…
Lorraine Marwood talks about the inspiration behind her new novel Leave Taking… It’s always hard to pin down the precise way inspiration forms, but I can isolate some emotional factors. For me a tone, an atmosphere and emotional stake has to occur to begin the writing process. I had written the opening verses of Leave Taking some years before, when we indeed left our farm and moved to regional Bendigo. But the story petered out and was left shut in its own little notebook. Fast forward ten years (at least) and I am recovering from a year of treatment for…