Ailsa Wild (text), Ben Wood (illus), Squishy Taylor and the Mess Makers (Squishy Taylor #4), Hardy Grant Egmont, 1 April 2016, 128pp., $12.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781760126780 Squishy Taylor is a fresh, new junior novel series offering a great alternative to the multitude of ‘girly-girl’ series for this age-group. It’s great to see an Australian children’s book series starring non-anglo kids. While there is no overt discussion of race, Squishy is depicted as a brown girl and her step-sisters appear to be Asian. This is the fourth book in the series and getting a handle on Squishy’s complex family relationships takes a…
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Mark Greenwood (text), Terry Denton (illut,) Boomerang and Bat, Allen and Unwin, May 2016, 32pp., $29.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781743319246 Boomerang and Bat is a masterfully told true story of an indigenous Australian cricket team that experienced a celebrated tour of England in the mid 1800s (1868 to be exact), but were unacknowledged in their homeland. Greenwood has crafted this historic episode in an active narrative with lively language to bring the story to life. Denton’s sketched and coloured illustrations echo the energy of the text, and have small details to draw the eye and shifts in perspective and palette to establish mood. In fact, on some…
Justine Flynn (text), J Yi (illus), Miss Mae’s Saturday. Random House Australia, 28 March 2016. 32pp., $16.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780857988584 Mae loves it when her grandmother comes to visit as they always do exciting things together like visiting the zoo or having a picnic in the park. What can they do when it is raining outside, though? That’s where the enchantment of a large, empty cardboard box comes in. Such a box can be turned into anything you want it to be – a car, a plane – even a rocket ship. Using the box, Mae and her grandmother travel to Africa…
Amy Zhang, This is Where the World Ends. Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins, 1 April 2016. 287pp., $19.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780062417879 What an intriguing and moving book this is. Janie and Micah are best friends but no-one knows. They are almost each other’s alter ego. This is far from a linear narrative structure; it is quite complex moving backwards and forwards in time and between the first-person narrative of both Jane and Micah, interspersed with selections from Janie’s diary and her versions of well-known fairy tales. Micah is deeply in love with Janie but is reluctant to tell Janie as she is the…
Cecelia Ahern, Flawed. HarperCollins, 1 April 2016. 400pp., $19.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780008126360 Celestine lives in a totalitarian society, not that she recognises it as such. In her view, she lives an ideal life. She’s doing well at school, she has the perfect boyfriend and she has plenty of friends. But in her culture, there is no room for anyone who breaks a rule as they can be deemed flawed. If they are labelled as such by a court, they are literally labelled, branded with a letter F to mark them out from those around them. This is not the end…
The Children’s Book Council of Australia heartily congratulates the Rev Dr John Cohen on his recent Order of Australia Award and thanks him for his many years of dedicated service to the organisation, to Reading Time and to children’s literature. John became editor of the Reading Time print journal over thirty years ago. His work over the years has had a positive and far-reaching influence on the development of Australian children’s books and publishing and has given encouragement, advice and even practical assistance to countless authors and illustrators of children’s books.
Emily Rodda, The Towers of Illica (Star of Deltora #3), Omnibus/Scholastic Australia, 1 April 2016, 176pp., $15.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781742990644 Emily Rodda (aka Jennifer Rowe) can do no wrong in my opinion! Books for all ages that encompass many themes to suit any taste. In this third book of the Star of Deltora series, Britta’s most important trade is ahead of her; if successful she may gain the much coveted position of Apprentice Trader of the Rosalyn fleet. Faced with many challenges, the main protagonist, Britta, is portrayed as a strong and adventurous female to which many girls of today will be…
Em Bailey, The Special Ones, Hardie Grant Egmont, 1 April 2016, 320pp., $19.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781742976280 Four young people are being held captive on a remote farm with no modern luxuries like electricity or packaged food. Forced by a strict set of rules, and knowing that they are being watched, they must pretend to be the people from a 100 year old photograph. Their captor has developed a website so that their ‘immortal’ lives are broadcast to eager followers and every evening the captives must access an online chat room to impart their wisdom and share their knowledge of living safely away…
James Lee, The Graves of Gasper Weavell & The Haunted Hoarder (Ghostworks #1), Xoum/New South Books, May 2016, 160pp., $9.99 (pbk), ISBN: 9781921134760 Personally, I think these stories deserve to be published separately! I moved from one story to the next and was discombobulated to find they are about different people having different ghostly experiences; separate stories with no connection other than being scary. In The Graves of Gasper Weavell, Zoe has a ghoulish hobby; she likes to take grave rubbings. When she invites her friends, Noah and James, to join her they stumble across two graves with the same name and unwittingly…
Johanna Bell (text), Dion Beasley (illus), Go Home, Cheeky Animals!, Allen & Unwin, May 2016, 32pp., $24.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781760291655 ‘At Canteen Creek, where we live’, there are many cheeky dogs. No one does anything about the dogs because they are supposed to keep the wild goats, donkeys, horses, buffaloes and camels away. Of course they don’t. And this provides Dion Beasley and Johana Bell with opportunities to make madly inspired funny colour pencil drawings of these pestiferous creatures invading Canteen Creek in droves between wet seasons. The text is large and bright, embedded in the sweep of the drawings that…