It is such an wonderful time of year. Spring is in the air and many of the year's most exciting releases are due to be published in time for Christmas and the Summer holidays. Below are just a sample of some of the excellent kids and young adult books our staff are looking forward to over the coming weeks. From charming and fun picture books to long-awaited sequels there's something that will appeal to everyone.
🐾 Picture books
The Midnight Chew
Sally Morgan, illustrated by Karen Blair
Award-winning First Nations author Sally Morgan and CBCA award-winning illustrator Karen Blair have created a playful, rhyming adventure that's perfect for younger readers who love dogs.
In this fun, canine adventure, Boofa Boy Jones and Skippy Gillespie must learn the importance of sharing.
When Boofa Boy Jones steals Skippy Gillespie's very big bone, a marvellous doggy race ensues. All through the night the pair run through the suburban streets from the doggy dump to the dog park and home again. But who will win the mighty bone, and will they feast all alone?
A Lost Cause
Felicita Sala
A baseball cap. A special sweater covered in dogs. A marble collection. The baseball cap, again.
Pablo just can’t stop losing his things: at the bus stop, in the park, on a plane, everywhere! When his exasperated parents give him the responsibility of keeping track of everything, Pablo tries – he really does. But his room has become a frightful mess, and with show-and-tell just around the corner, Pablo needs to find his things now more than ever. Where have they gone to? And who can help him now?
Relatably told from a child’s point of view, this playful tale from internationally beloved author-illustrator Felicita Sala explores the secret lives of the countless little things that go missing every day.
Between
Anna Walker
A cabbage moth and a cricket meet for the first time in the quiet space between twilight and dawn. As the unlikely pair discover each other's worlds, friendship blooms in unexpected places.
From award-winning creator Anna Walker comes a poetic tale of connection and understanding. With Walker's masterful illustrations in stunning spot colours, Between invites readers to explore what happens when we bridge the spaces that divide us.
A tale that will resonate with readers of all ages and spark conversations about empathy, friendship, and the beauty of reaching out to others.
🏕️ Junior grade
Ivy and Bearlock Holmes: The Case of the Missing Flower
Kristyna Litten
When the rare Agave flower goes missing from Bearona's botanic gardens, it's up to super-sleuth Ivy and her grandpa Bearlock Holmes to crack the case. But with multiple suspects and a trail that's starting to run cold, can they catch the culprit before the flower is lost forever?
The first book in a brand-new mystery fiction series, this interactive book features 15 puzzles that are woven into the action, so readers can feel immersed in the exciting detective plot.
Blending mystery with real world science and nature, this is the perfect series for newly independent readers.
Spud and Snowball and the Fancy Fish (Spud and Snowball, Book 1)
Judith Rossell
Meet two cheeky cats in this brand-new illustrated fiction for emerging readers from the bestselling, award-winning creator Judith Rossell.
Every day, Spud and Snowball lie on the couch and watch TV. When they see an ad for Fancy Fish, the two cats work out a way to have this new food delivered to their doorstep. But what arrives is totally unexpected.
Can Spud and Snowball outwit this loud, bossy and very fancy intruder?
🐉 Middle Grade
Bunns Rabbit
Alan Barillaro
When Bunns is born with small but perfectly functional rabbit ears, the warren is abuzz with auguries. Surely such short ears spell bad luck for the community. Sheltered in her family's burrow, Bunns listens to the rhythm of her mother's heartbeat – Thump, thump, thump – a song of home and belonging. Her father explains that unlike a rabbit's words or thumping feet, a heartsong cannot lie. But the unknown world of the meadow, the sounds and smells above, call to Bunns.
When at last she's ready to brave the staring and whispering of neighbours who fear her because she's different, and the disapproving elders who threaten to banish her family, she finds a world beyond the warren where myths and riddles, magic voyages and important new friends await. Can the "bad omen bunny" follow her own heartsong to a destiny – a wish – meant just for her?
The Last Ember (The Aerimander Chronicles, Book 1)
Lily Berlin Dodd
Aerimanders are extinct. Or so the government would have you think, having centuries earlier destroyed the last of these deadly, dragon-like creatures.
So when wealthy twelve-year-old chemistry student Eva Alexander unwittingly purchases an aerimander egg, she becomes the target of the Thieves’ Union and its newest member, thirteen-year-old orphan Dusty St. Ichabod. But Eva is no easy mark, and soon she and Dusty are driven into a maze of sinister threats, betrayals and surprises – all while fighting to keep the egg away from power-hungry hands.
As the unlikely duo races against time, their fates – and that of the whole world – are at stake. Because there’s one question no one dares to ask: What happens when the egg hatches?
The Poisoned King (Impossible Creatures, Book 2)
Katherine Rundell
The dragons call out, and the ratatoskas tell of murder. Come with us now. There is justice to be done.
When Christopher Forrester is unexpectedly woken by a miniature dragon chewing on his face, his heart leaps for joy. For months he's dreamed of returning to the Archipelago the secret islands where all the creatures of myth still live. But he did not know it would involve a rescue mission on the back of a sphinx, or a plan to enter a dragon's lair. Nor did he imagine it would involve a girl with a flock of birds at her side, a new-hatched chick in her pocket and a ravenous hunger for justice.
Other Kids books to look forward to are: Sundays under the Lemon Tree by Julia Busuttil Nishimura illustrated by Myo Yim, The Wondrous Tale of Lavender Wolfe by Karen Foxlee, I Love Me by Sally Morgan & Ambelin Kwaymullina, Frances Bloom (Frances Bloom, Book 1) by Katrina Nannestad, illustrated by Marina Zlatanova and Oh Dear, Look What I Got! by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury.
📓✧ Young adult fiction
What Have They Done to Liza McLean?
Amy Doak
Meg McLean is a scholarship student at the ultra-elite Douglas College. Meg's younger sister, Liza, is along for the ride, and everything Liza has done since they arrived at the school seems to be putting their chances of success at risk. Until one day, when Liza's behaviour is so at odds with her usual temperament that Meg knows something is very, very wrong.
Benedict Hargreaves (the Fourth) is Douglas College's wealthiest student and perhaps the only one who isn't influenced by the school and its strict code of conduct. Is he brave enough to help Meg uncover what has happened to her sister? Or is he part of the elusive 'they' who seem to be controlling everything – and everyone? And, when more than one murder takes place, can Meg really trust anyone?
Hazelthorn
CG Drews
Evander has lived like a ghost in the forgotten corners of the Hazelthorn estate ever since he was taken in by his reclusive billionaire guardian. He can never leave, he can never go in the gardens and he can never be alone with Laurie, the boy who tried to kill him seven years ago.
But when his guardian is murdered and Evander inherits Hazelthorn, Laurie may be the only one who can help him find the killer.
As dark secrets unravel, moss bleeds though the walls, poisonous mushrooms flourish beneath the floorboards, and Evander must discover what he's really inherited before Hazelthorn's garden demands to be fed.
A Murder Is Going Down
Kate Emery
Heidi's meant to be having the time of her life on exchange in Switzerland, but instead she's cold, alone and on an involuntary dairy-free diet. So when she hears the news of her brother Felix's death, she jumps on the first plane home to Perth.
To be completely honest, Felix wasn't that much of a brother, so Heidi's not crying buckets – but she's not exactly happy either. Thanks to an epic betrayal by her (ex) best friend and (ex) boyfriend, Heidi has absolutely nothing to do and no one to talk to. That's until Patrick, the wisecracking younger brother of Felix's widow, convinces her that they need to investigate her brother's mysterious death.
Will Heidi and Patrick get to the bottom of Felix's death – and do they really want to?
Cold Wire
Chloe Gong
For decades, the world has been caught in a cold war between two powerful nations: Medaluo and Atahua. The Medan orphans who live in Atahua suffer the cost. Their enrolment at Nile Military Academy is mandatory. Either serve as a soldier, or risk being labelled a spy.
Eighteen-year-old Eirale is one such orphan. Having recently graduated and joined NileCorp's forces, she's doing well for herself – until Atahua's most wanted anarchist frames her for assassinating a government official and she's given a choice: cooperate with him to search for a dangerous program in Medaluo or go down for treason.
Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Lia is close to her own graduation when she's paired with her academic nemesis for one final assignment. But when they are ordered to infiltrate Medaluo in virtual reality, Lia quickly realises there is much more at stake than her school ranking.
As Eirale and Lia tear through Medaluo on separate courses, the two start to suspect they are pieces in a larger conspiracy – and the closer they get to the truth, the closer their worlds come to a shattering collision.
We Fell Apart
E. Lockhart
Matilda has been through a lot. Her mum has run off to Mexico, her boyfriend has dumped her, and her friends have cut their ties. So when her long-lost father, the famous and reclusive painter Kingsley Cello, invites Matilda to spend the summer at his seaside home, Hidden Beach, there's nothing to stop her crossing the country to see him.
When she arrives, instead of a father, she finds a crumbling house in a state of neglect, filled with mysterious paintings and locked towers, and three teenaged boys: Meer – her open-hearted, tattoo-obsessed half-brother, who embraces Matilda as a sister, but is hiding a dark secret; Brock – the damaged, professionally charming former-child star who is dealing with more than just the demons of his past; and Tatum – sullen, wild, and hardworking – who for some reason wants Matilda to leave Hidden Beach as soon as possible.
With Kingsley nowhere to be seen, Matilda must delve into the twisted heart of Hidden Beach to uncover the answers she's desperately craving. But secrets run thicker than blood, and blood runs like seawater. And everyone here is lying.
The Rose Field (The Book of Dust, Volume 3)
Philip Pullman
When readers left Lyra in The Secret Commonwealth she was alone, in the ruins of a deserted city. Pantalaimon had run from her – part of himself – in search of her imagination, which he believed she had lost. Lyra travelled across the world from her Oxford home in search of her d mon. And Malcolm, loyal Malcolm, too journeyed far from home, towards the Silk Roads in search of Lyra . . .
In The Rose Field, their quests converge in the most dangerous, breathtaking and world-changing ways. They must take help from spies and thieves, gryphons and witches, old friends and new, learning all the while the depth and surprising truths of the alethiometer. All around them, the world is aflame – made terrifying by fear, power and greed.
As they move East, towards the red building that will reunite them and give them answers – on Dust, on the special roses, on imagination – so too does the Magisterium, at war against all that Lyra holds dear.
📚 Also available in hardback for the special price of $45 (was $55) which can be pre-ordered here.
