This month sees the release of Alice Pung’s Laurinda, a young adult novel that (a) needed to be written and (b) needed to be written by Alice Pung. Laurinda is set in a mainly-white private girls’ school in Melbourne and narrated by scholarship girl Lucy, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants. Our reviewer, Athina Clarke, called it “a time machine that shot me straight back to my own years in middle secondary school”. Indeed, I expect this will be a cathartic book for many post-teen YA fans. It is set in the 1990s, although this was not immediately obvious to me. I was struck by the beautifully crafted prose and completely hooked by Lucy’s experience of being the sore thumb in a world of appearances, back-stabbing and prejudice.

Now we go from over-privileged horrors to real monsters: Monstrous Affections is a new anthology from the same team responsible for Steampunk, featuring a host of young adult fiction superstars like Patrick Ness, Cassandra Clare and Holly Black. Our reviewer Holly Harper called it “a truly diverse collection that will have you laughing as well as hiding under the covers”. Meanwhile, fans of Robert Muchamore and Michael Grant, who enjoyed Tom Hoyle’s debut Thirteen, will be pleased to see the sequel, Spiders, after only a few months of waiting.

Nestling neatly just under the young adult category is Violet Ink by Rebecca Westcott, which I came to read after my 10 year old had inhaled it during a few evenings. It wasn’t difficult to see what had grabbed her, or to imagine my former tween self feeling the same way, but by the end I was enjoying it without any need for projection. In fact there was one bit that my daughter called “a bit predictable” that I didn’t see coming and brought a tear to my eye, so it provoked a good discussion between us. She’s now reading Dandelion Clocks by the same author. I guess I’ll have to wait my turn.

I was really excited to see that my colleague Alexa had declared one book this month as “one of the standout reads for me this year!” She was referring to Escape From Mr Lemoncello’s Library, which has been described as a cross between Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the Ben Stiller movie Night at the Museum. The story is about a group of children who are invited into a very special library, and therein to play a game: finding the exit. This involves using new-fangled gadgets as well as good old-fashioned books. No bookworm could resist a concept like that, surely.

First picture book mention has to go to my favourite Australian author-illustrator team, Libby Gleeson and Freya Blackwood. Go To Sleep, Jessie! is about a little girl who shares a room with her baby sister. Freya Blackwood’s artwork makes you want to go and live inside it, and Jessie’s refusal to sleep will resonate strongly not just with big sisters but tired parents.

Those who love to doodle (and frankly, who doesn’t?) have two great options this month: Around Australia With Jacky Winter, and Terry Denton’s Bumper Book of the Universe. Both are filled with drawing activities, challenges and quizzes, the former by 75 Australian artists, and the latter by one solitary, legendary treehouse-drawing man. You know which treehouse I’m talking about. Doodle away, my friends.