For those of you who live and breathe books and consider many of them to be close personal friends, my first pick for February is going to make your hearts sing: A Book is a Book by Jenny Bornholdt (and illustrated by Sarah Wilkins). Written from a child’s perspective - essentially, everything you could say about books in the simplest and most charming way - this title is very much something for book-lovers of all ages to cherish. There are some killer lines and as tempting as it is to rattle them off I can’t bear to ruin them for you - inspection highly recommended.

I also can’t wait for people to discover Irena Kobald’s My Two Blankets, illustrated by Freya Blackwood whose art always contributes a great deal of emotion to any story. And this story is really special. It’s about a girl called Cartwheel who arrives in a new country and has only an old blanket to make her feel safe and remind her of home. Bravely, she makes the first step towards weaving a new blanket, and making new connections. It’s obvious to say that this is going to ring true for anyone who has had to leave their original home, but I think the feelings in this book are about facing change in general. I fell for it completely.

Midnight: The Story of a Light Horse

Last year I was fortunate enough to chair a talk at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival during which Mark Greenwood gave a fascinating talk about his picture book Jandamarra, which he created with Terry Denton to tell the story of an Australian indigenous hero of the Kimberley. I read all of Mark’s picture books with my then 6 year-old son to prepare for the session and we found them to be very clever, fascinating introductions to Australian history. Mark’s latest book is out now: Midnight: The Story of a Light Horse cleverly uses one horse to introduce the significance of a particular battle during World War 1. His research is always thorough and I urge you to read this blog post on the background to Midnight.

As a new school year begins, it’s time to supplement the reading work being done in the classroom with some great books to share at home. New series The Tinklers Three by Meredith Badger will appeal to children who are ready to move onto short chapter books. It features three siblings who are nice to each other but not sickly sweet, and live without parental guidance so are able to get up to a bit of mischief that tends to escalate into the realms of gentle fantasy.

For confident readers, but also a recommended read-aloud for the family, there’s Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy by Karen Foxlee, which our reviewer says “has it all!” It’s a save-the-world story with quirky humour and loveable characters.

We’re always excited about additions to the Our Australian Girl series. Just out is Gabrielle Wang’s second girl of the series, Pearlie (1941, Darwin) and Michelle Hamer’s first, Daisy (1930, Country Victoria). This series is such a success in every way, so it’s great to see that Penguin are bringing out a companion series featuring Australian boys, called Do You Dare.

In Young Adult fiction, my pet book of the month is Nine Open Arms (a big thumbs-up for translated fiction). There’s a sequel that hasn’t been translated yet, as far as I know, so I have two choices: convince enough people to buy Nine Open Arms that the publisher decide to hurry the sequel along, or learn to speak Dutch.

Closer to home we have Robyn Bavati’s Pirouette, which is about identical twins who are adopted as babies by different families, and Tonya Alexander’s first book in a series called The Love Oracles - Nymph - which is about a nymph who is banished by the Greek Gods and sent to live on Earth, where she has to go to school and try to fit into a normal life. Thanks in part to Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series we have a new generation of children who love Greek mythology - add romance and you have a fun, light-hearted read for teens.

Finally, special mentions to some cover designs that really appealed this month. Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith and Tape by Steven Camden. They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but I’m feeling favourable about these two based on covers alone.

Emily Gale