Chris Priestley (text), David Roberts (illus.), Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror, Bloomsbury/Allen & Unwin, Dec 2016, 250pp., $14.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781408871096 In the holidays, Edgar is drawn to visit his enigmatic uncle, who lives in the woods in a gloomy mansion called Pity’s End. The shadowy interior is cold as a tomb, save for his uncle’s museum-like study where Edgar feels compelled to sit in front of the fire and listen to Montague tell strange and gruesome tales about the extraordinary artefacts that adorn the shelves and mantle. There is a sense of foreboding from the start. Things are not…
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Bingbo (text), Gumi (illus.), The Busy Tailor Crab, Starfish Bay Children’s Books, Sept 2016, 40pp., $25.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781760360412 Tailor Crab makes clothes for all the animals. But not every piece of clothing is the same due to each animal’s’ specific characteristics. He becomes concerned that the money he charges does not reflect the time and materials that go into some of his pieces, particularly for animals such as a caterpillar, so he decides to charge per leg. He soon realises this does not really solve his problem either, as some animals are much larger than others. Finally he tears down…
Nikki Slade Robinson, The Roadman Boogie, Starfish Bay Children’s Books, June 2016, 40pp., $25.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781760360146 Roadman is cold and bored and soggy, so to the delight of carloads of people, he decides to liven up his day by dancing to the music which wafts out of the cars that pass by. He boogies to rockabilly, jazz, country, Latin, disco and more. The author was inspired by a real road worker dancing as he directed the traffic. The alliterative rhyme has rhythm and is fun to read aloud. Lots of discussion could take place around the musical terms. It…
Joshua Button and Robyn Wells, At the Zoo I See, Magabala Books, Feb 2017, 7pp., $9.99 (board book), ISBN: 9781925360455 This sumptuous board book is gloriously illustrated with the kinds of animals children encounter in zoos. There are nine animals here, ranging from a ‘flying macaw’ to a ‘queenly cassowary’. Each animal has its appropriate or alliterative adjective, and each one is vividly coloured in ink and wash. This book is just long enough and short enough to be one of those books you can read often and return to with pleasure at bed time, morning tea time, breakfast or…
Steven Herrick, Love, Ghosts and Nose Hair, University of Queensland Press, 3 Jan 2017, 115pp., $19.95 (pbk), ISBN: 9780702228780 Steven Herrick, A Place Like This, University of Queensland Press, 3 Jan 2017, 137pp., $19.95 (pbk) ISBN: 9780702229848 Steven Herrick is Australia’s most well-known, well published, most widely performed, and probably our best, YA verse novelist. His audience is anywhere from thirteen to eighteen. He knows instinctively that if you are going to write for this age group you can’t afford to be inauthentic, or in any manner a finger-pointing adult. His novels are funny and serious, bubbling along with intelligence and lively…
Cornelia Funke, The Golden Yarn : Reckless (Mirrorworld #3), Pushkin Press/Murdoch Books, Dec 2016, 442pp., $24.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781782691266 German author, Cornelia Funke is well known for her addictive, fantastical novels that draw the reader into worlds unlike any other. The Mirrorworld is no different, full of dark, dangers and unexpected twists. In the third title of the Mirrorworld series, we once again join Jacob Reckless, the human treasure-hunter whose adventures we have already followed in two previous Reckless books, The Petrified Flesh and Living Shadows. In The Golden Yarn, Jacob, with his shapeshifting companion Fox, travel deep into Varangia, the…
Pat Clarke (text), Graeme Compton (illus.), Elvira and the Pilliga Mouse, Little Steps Books, Dec 2016, 76pp., $24.95 (hbk), ISBN: 9781925117981 There is a slightly old-world feel to this book which is presented like a hardback picture book but is actually a junior novel with colour illustrations. It features the animals of the Pilliga Forest – the author lives in the neighboring Goonoo Forest – and would make a good jumping off point for studying native fauna in the classroom. The story is based around a wedge-tailed eagle, Elvira, who lives at Taronga Zoo but gets lost during a storm.…
We asked author John Heffernan to tell us about researching his newest book, Hotaka, the first in a new series about Natural Disasters from Allen & Unwin. Hotaka will be released February 22nd. My latest YA novel deals with the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami as seen through the eyes of a teenage boy. Hotaka is the first book in Lyn White’s new Through My Eyes Series from Allen & Unwin. In researching the book, I went to Japan, to the disaster zone itself. In March 2015 I toured the length of the devastated Tohoku coast, visiting towns, capturing images,…
Brian Conaghan, The Bombs That Brought Us Together, Bloomsbury/Allen & Unwin, May 2016, 368pp., $16.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781408878415 Told in a unique style The Bombs That Brought Us Together follows the story of fourteen-year-old Charlie Law who lives in Little Town, a small country boarding the larger, stronger Old Country. Little Town and Old Country both have their share of issues but at least Charlie knows the rules of Little Town. He can deal with the imposed curfews, the censorship and The Rascals – the heavy men of The Regime. So when Old Country bombs his city and sends in their soldiers,…
Julia Donaldson (text), Rebecca Cobb (illus.), The Everywhere Bear, Pan Macmillan, 14 Feb 2017, 32pp., $24.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781447280736 The Everywhere Bear lives on the shelf of Class One. But this lucky little ted spends very little time there as a different student takes him home each weekend. The students are cleverly introduced to the reader early in the piece using a rhyming roll call. This is followed by a montage of lovingly drawn Polaroids splashed across the page showing the places the Everywhere Bear has been and the things he’s seen with his classmates. However, it’s not until he is dropped from…