Ursula Dubosarsky’s latest novel The Blue Cat is set in World War II Sydney. It captures the fear and danger of the time authentically, but as well, it creates and maintains an air of mystery and intrigue. Here are some thoughts from the author about its origins and meaning. The Cat is Blue I only know The cat is blue He sits alone His needs are few I wrote the poem that appears at the beginning of The Blue Cat during a long flight home to Sydney from the Berlin International Literature Festival. The cabin was dark. Everyone was…
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Allison Rushby, The Turnkey, Walker Books Australia, 1 March 2017, 256pp., $16.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781925126921 As the Turnkey at London’s Highgate Cemetery, twelve-year-old Flossie Birdwhistle oversees all the souls at rest. A ghost herself, Flossie lives in the twighlight world with a collection of otherworldly friends. As World War II rages across Europe, enemy bombers constantly attack London, so when Flossie encounters the ghost of a German soldier lurking around her cemetery, she becomes suspicious. As Flossie searches to find answers, she unwittingly uncovers a sinister plot that spans both the world of the living and dead. In Flossie’s life…
Samantha Wheeler, Wombat Warriors, University of Queensland Press, 3 April 2017, 192pp., $14.95 (pbk), ISBN: 9780702259586 The most awful thing has happened to Mouse (AKA Minnie, but she prefers Mouse) when Wombat Warriors opens: she is being dropped off at her Aunt Evie’s house in South Australia, while her Mum and Dad go to Ireland for a funeral. Mouse, on her introduction to readers, lives up to her nickname, as she moves in with an aunt she hasn’t seen in ages. Evie is the kind of talkative adult that any kid would find intimidating. She is a gregarious character, the kind…
Paul Collins, Harry Kruize, Born to Lose, Ford Street, March 2017, 225pp., $17.95 (pbk), ISBN: 9781925272628 Harry is having a hard time of it. Several years ago, his father left him and his mother for another woman, and now Harry has become the target of the school bully. Harry’s psychologist is no help at all, and his mother is acting very strangely all of a sudden. The only person that Harry really seems to connect with is the old drifter, Jack Ellis, who camps out in the shed in the garden and tells Harry amazing stories, but Jack brings his own mysteries with…
Jeff Giles, The Edge of Everything, Bloomsbury/Allen & Unwin, Feb 2017, 368pp., $16.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781408869079 There was a time in my teenage years when books of power and integrity like The Changeover by Margaret Mahy stamped their indelible mark on me. The Edge of Everything plugged me straight back into that time of wonder and intensity, and from the moment I opened the first page I was caught. The Edge of Everything is layers of mystery and tension, beautifully balanced and held together by characters so finely drawn that you can’t help caring about them. There is Zoe, fierce, full…
Garth Nix, Frogkisser!, Allen & Unwin, March 2017, 336pp., $19.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781760293512 This is no mushy, romantic fairytale; this is adventure, humour, and battles, with a Princess who will kiss frogs, wade through sewers and trust her life to a nerve-wracking flying carpet to get the job done. Princess Anya promised her sister Morven that she would find Morven’s True Love, who was turned into a frog by their stepstepfather (it’s a long story), the evil sorcerer Duke Rikard. Except Morven has lost interest in her amphibian suitor, Duke Rikard has lost patience with waiting for the throne of Trallonia,…
Alex Ratt (text), Jules Faber (illus.), The Stinky Street Stories, Pan Macmillan Australia, 28 March 2017, 192pp., $14.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781743539026 So gross… but I loved it! The conversations are typical of boys and I have a clear image of Brian and Nerf interacting as they try different acts of vengeance that are doomed to failure. As the reader, you know they haven’t got a hope of success and you can see every wrong move, but these guys don’t give up. In the first story Brian, who tries desperately to get everyone to call him Brain, wakes up on Sunday morning…
Jane Stadermann, Gold: Hastings find a rainforest friend, self-published, 14 Feb 2017, 31pp., $20.00 (pbk), ISBN: 9780994467898 When Hastings Mouse finds a yellow seed (the “gold” of the title), he plants it, before leaving Quoll to take care of it while Hastings sets off on other business. He wants to find a housemate to share the tree-home that will grow from the seed. Set in Gondwana rainforest (which consists of the subtropical, warm temperate and cool temperate rainforests of Central Eastern Australia), Hastings meets a range of animals native to the region, including Cray, Giant Barred Frog and Lyrebird. Despite inviting…
David Lawrence (text), James Hart (illus.), The Bench Warmers (Ball Stars #1), Random House Australia, 30 Jan 2017, 144pp., $12.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9780143781639 Danny is not a sporty kid. He likes PC games and comics, spending a lot of time in his room on his computer, to his parents’ despair. Then his family move to a new house with a basketball hoop over the garage, and he discovers he likes the ‘swish’ a basketball makes when it goes through the hoop. He also learns that he has a knack for shooting hoops. When he starts at his new school, this…
Isabel Sánchez Vegara (text), Elisa Munsó (illus.), Agatha Christie (Little People, Big Dreams), Murdoch Books, march 2017, 32pp., $19.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781847809599 Part of the Little People, Big Dreams series, this is a picture book about the author Agatha Christie. The text is brief, focusing on Christie’s early love of reading and the life experiences that led her to become one of the most famous and well-loved crime writers of all time. In line with the ‘big dreams’ idea, it begins by explaining how as a child she always wanted to rewrite the endings of books that she read and…