The big literary news of February was the announcement that an eighth Harry Potter story would be published on 31 July!

Fans farewelled Harry Potter as he waved goodbye to his son on Platform 9 ¾, nineteen years after the battle of Hogwarts, but his story didn’t end there. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the official rehearsal script for the West End stage play and will continue on where the novels finished. Staff made some (frankly, rather depressing) predictions for what will happen in the next instalment here.

This month, we also invited our staff to reflect on guilty pleasures, and the art of pretending to have read book.

To our delight, author and illustrator Leigh Hobbs was named the new Australian Children’s Laureate this month. Hobbs is known as the creator of such iconic characters as Old Tom, Mr Chicken and Horrible Harriet and over the past two decades has won the heart of many a young fan with his dark humour and distinctive drawing style. We were also thrilled to announce Maxine Beneba Clarke as our guest judge for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. The 2016 shortlist will be announced at midday on Tuesday 23 August.

Our children specialists have been talking up a storm on the blog this month. Holly wrote about some of our favourite unusual princesses in children’s books, Angela shared three children’s books from Indigenous Australians that she loves, and Lian shared some terrific books to read aloud in honour of World Read Aloud Day. And OzYA fans may be interested to read this reflection on reimagined visions of Australia in YA books.

Finally, we’ll leave you with some literary recommendations for all kinds of tricky situations.

If you’re worried about climate change… Here’s a collection of fascinating fiction from authors who are grappling with these same concerns in imaginative ways.

If you’re sick of people recommending classic novels to you, that just don’t seem as good as everyone says… Here’s a collection of contemporary literary antidotes. (We promise, you’re not the only reader to hate Heathcliff!)

And if life just, well, kind of sucks right now… Here’s a collection of book recommendations, depending on what kind of reading experience you’re in the mood for.