Mick Elliott, Mums and Mogs, Walker Books Australia, April 2024, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 978176065501 Love the end papers of Mums and Mogs. Love the huge variety of cats in every shape and size. The mums are in every shape and size too. I suspect readers should be a cat-lover to be in the Mums and Mogs readership team. Luckily, the happy companion book is Mick Elliot’s Dads and Dogs. Dog lovers are in this team, even if you do not have a dog. Mums and Mogs is a cavalcade of fun with rascally, annoying, funny, adventurous, playful,…
Author: Admin
Leanne Yong, Two Can Play that Game, Allen & Unwin, January 2023, 365 pp., RRP $19.99 (pbk), ISBN 978-1761063374 This is a sweet and incredibly entertaining story of rivalry set in the world of computer game design. Sam Khoo and Jay Chua meet by complete accident – both intent on securing a highly desirable ticket to a game design workshop which, for Sam, is the key to her dream career in game design, and for Jay is a secret gift for his younger brother, Ansen. With only one ticket, and both of them laying claim, they come up with the…
Sue Whiting (text) and Rebecca Crane (illustrator), Pearly and Pig and the Island of Secrets (Pearly and Pig #3), Walker Books Australia, March 2024, 190 pp., RRP $15.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781760657697 Firstly, a big congratulations to Sue Whiting, Rebecca Crane and Walker Books for Pearly and Pig and the Lost City of Mu Savan (book #2) which was named a notable in the Younger Reader category for the 2024 CBCA Book of the Year awards. Pearly and Pig and the Island of Secrets is the third Pearly and Pig story, and this series is only getting stronger in my opinion.…
Andrea Rowe (text) and Hannah Sommerville (illustrator), In the Rockpool, Hardie Grant Children’s Books, November 2023, 24 pp., RRP $19.99 (board), ISBN 9781761213014 One little rockpool. Two little eyes. Three little urchins, bobbing with the tide… In the Rockpool is an exquisite counting board book for little readers to dive into. Andrea Rowe’s clear, simple text explores the creatures in a seaside rockpool, paired with Hannah Sommerville’s beautiful and translucent artwork. There is a lovely sense of light and colour on every page that make this book feel like a perfect summer’s day, and the diverse array of little ones…
Jenny Davis OAM, Courage be My Friend: The Vivian Bullwinkel Story, Fremantle Press, April 2024, 208 pp., RRP $17.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781760993726 Courage Be My Friend is a semi-autobiographical account of the story of nurse Vivian Bullwinkel during World War II revealing the sacrifices of the courageous women who served in war. Sister Bullwinkel enlisted in the Australian Army Nurse Service at the outbreak of World War II and was posted to Singapore. In February 1942, Singapore was evacuated and hundreds of people tried to escape the advancing Japanese army. Vivian was captured. From Vivian’s group of nurses 24 survived,…
Sophie Blackall, If I was a horse, Lothian Children’s Books, Sept 2023, 26 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9780734422712 Shortlisted for the 2024 CBCA Picture Book of the Year Award This joyous picture book celebrates a child’s imagination and the desire to escape from the expectations and constraints of childhood. I read somewhere that the inspiration for this book came from a comment made by Blackall’s ten year old son who said, ‘If I was a horse, I would gallop all day’. Blackall’s books are all full of whimsy and eye-catching details, and this is no exception. Have fun looking for…
Fiona White (text) and Kathleen O’Hagan (illustrator), Wear a Purple Poppy: Remembering Animals in War, Hachette, January 2024, 24 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9780734421630 Wear a Purple Poppy commemorates the support role of animals in Australian war campaigns. Succinctly and clearly written recounts, by author Fiona White, describe how donkeys and mules carried heavy loads; dogs were companions or trackers; pigeons carried messages; and more. The animals’ courage, determination and loyalty is remembered by wearing purple poppies on the National Day for War Animals (24 February). Whilst the stories are interesting – such as the one about elephants who…
A.J. Betts, One Song, Pan Macmillan Australia, July 2023, 400 pp., RRP $19.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781761264900 Perfectionist singer and songwriter Eva has entered the Triple J Unearthed High contest three years running, with dreams of launching her career in the music industry. Three years in a row, she’s failed to get even a rejection email, and she’s not going to put herself through that again, until Cooper, her friend and crush, talks her into taking this one last chance to enter the competition and helps her round up a band to make it happen. With only one weekend left to…
Belinda Landsberry, Anzac Ted (3rd ed.), March 2024, 32 pp., RRP $29.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781922539755 How do we celebrate Anzac Day? Could it be a scruffy Ted with a patch over his lost eye, worn parts who wears a torn uniform? At the Show and Tell the class avoids Anzac Ted. No-one votes for him, but Anzac Ted has a brave secret. Anzac Ted was Jack’s grandpa’s teddy and went with him into battles from Africa to Greece. He became the mascot for the Anzac soldiers. While Anzac Ted never received a medal. He was a hero who gave comfort…
Jeannie Baker, Desert Jungle, Walker Books, May 2023, 40 pp., RRP $27.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781406387872 Jeannie Baker makes gorgeous books that children love and adults admire. This one is the result of a six-week research trip to the Sonora Desert in Mexico just south of the border with the United States. It is an area under consideration as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The story takes place in the Valley of the Cirios. The Cirio tree, named the Bojum tree by an Englishman in the nineteenth century, is endemic to this desert, and makes for the strange proliferation of cactus-like…