Kathy Willis (text), Katie Scott (illus.), Botanicum (Welcome to the Museum series), The Five Mile Press, September 2016, 112pp., $39.95 (hbk), ISBN: 9781760403423 Green thumbs and lovers of all things leafy will swoon at the sight of this magnificent tome. Katie Scott (who illustrated the amazing Animalium) and Kathy Willis have created a horticultural museum to make you feel you’ve crossed the threshold into a magical and timeless kingdom of plants. Journey through the history and variety of the world’s plants, from the beginnings of plant life on earth to today; from the most beautiful and exotic, to the strangest and…
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Julia Hubery (text), Lucia Masciullo (illus.), The Ballad of Henry Hoplingsea, Hardie Grant Egmont, 1 Sept 2016, 32pp., $24.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781760121259 Oh, sweet Henry – the lengths he will go to to win his darling Carmelita’s heart are certainly admirable. Too bad for farmer Henry, Carmelita has her sights set on the glamorous life of a princess (don’t we all!). Knowing what she wants from a husband, Henry Hoplingsea sets off to become the knight in shining armour his beloved is pinning for. The gorgeous pencil and watercolour illustrations by Lucia Masciullo sit perfectly alongside Julia Hubrey’s text. The images…
Kathleen Glasgow, Girl in Pieces, HarperCollins Australia, 1 Oct 2016, 416pp., $19.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781460751053 Charlie Davis wants to fit the pieces of herself together but she can’t. There’s been too much pain and sorrow in her life. Instead, relief is a sharp slice. This story follows Charlie as she stumbles along the path to recovery. Girl in Pieces is for older teens, aged 15 and over. It is packed with triggers. It deals with sex, drug abuse, self-harm, alcohol, explicit language, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and suicide. Though the themes are dark, the story is not depressing or bleak. We…
Penny Morrison (text), Gabriel Evans (illus.), Captain Sneer the Buccaneer, Walker Books Australia, 1 Sept 2016, 32pp., $24.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781922179609 He may be the Captain, he may be after the gold, but we know Sneer the Buccaneer is not really all that bold. Fun rhyming will delight children ages three and over and engage them in this rollicking adventure full of action and surprises. While Miss Five and I are enjoying this book now, it took a few reads for us to embrace it, and appreciate the layered storytelling. We also realised I had forgotten the most important element of…
Sam Winston (text), Oliver Jeffers (illus.) A Child of Books, Walker Books Australia, 1 Sept 2016, 40pp., $27.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781406358315 Endpapers filled with the titles and authors of literary works indicate to the reader they are in for a treat with this exceptional picture book. The verbal text is told in the first person from a young girl’s perspective as she tells of her travels through her reading. The visuals are simple yet complex. For example, she stands on a log raft with a blank page for a sail, the choppy ocean is made from the text of several titles…
Jane Abbott, Elegy, Random House, 29 August 2016, 363pp., $19.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780143781592 Gabe and Caitlin are stepbrother and sister. Six-year-old Michael who, along with his mother Barb, came to live with them and their father Jim. This is the beginning of the story, told in the first person from Caitlin’s viewpoint, in the first short chapter. We do not read this first-person narrative from Caitlin again until the second-last chapter of the book, almost ending this story, before finishing with a teaser for future stories of Michael and Caitlin. Michael and Caitlin are the names given to these two…
Elizabeth Kasmer Becoming Aurora, University of Queensland Press, 29 August 2016, 210pp. $19.95 (pbk.), ISBN 9780702254208 Sixteen-year-old Aurora (Rory) is a troubled young woman. She often looks after her four-year-old brother while her widowed mother works. Rory lives with the guilt of her father’s death four years previous. She is required to perform community service at an aged care facility after taking sole responsibility for vandalising the Curry House with her friends, including childhood friend Cam. The racist slogan painted on the wall is indicative of the attitudes of the group. After the humiliation felt during the court appearance Rory’s…
Isabel Minhós Martins (text), Bernardo P. Carvalho (illus.) Don’t Cross the Line! Gecko Press, 1 Oct 2016, 40pp., $27.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781776570744 The general gives his guard orders that no one is to cross the line. The guard stands to attention with his gun, stopping characters arriving at the line. The line is the gutter of the book and the “general reserves the right to keep the page blank, so he can join the story whenever he feels like it”. As the left hand page fills with characters on their way to the right hand page, the guard is increasingly…
Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick, Owl Bat Bat Owl, Walker Books Australia, 1 Oct 2016, 32pp., $24.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781406364392 One tree branch, two very different families. Will these two families be able to get along? Owl Bat, Bat Owl is a wordless picture book that tells a tale of an owl family and a bat family after the bat family makes the owl’s branch their home – owls on top, bats hanging from below. Initially the two families stay well apart, the parents trying to keep their curious young from mixing. But one day, as disaster strikes, the two families discover they do…
Yasmeen Ismail, Nothing!, Bloomsbury/Allen & Unwin, Sept 2016, 32pp., $14.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781408873366 What is Lila doing? “Nothing!” she repeatedly replies. But inside Lila’s imagination, she is always busy – tumbling in a circus, battling fearsome beasties, riding on a chariot or climbing high in the trees. Nothing! captures the life inside a child’s mind, and celebrates imagination. A joyous book for children, it also serves as a reminder for grown-ups of the wonderful imaginations of children. Vibrant watercolour illustrations allow us to see the world inside Lila’s head, and there is a real sense of movement as busy Lila tumbles…