This month we’re excited about a wonderful guide for resilient teens, surreal and quirky stories, hard-hitting contemporary fiction and a cross-cultural coming-of-age story.

Find our April picks for kids books here.

YA BOOK OF THE MONTH

Good Selfie: Tips & Tools for Teens to Nail Life by Turia Pitt & Freda Chiu

Motivational speaker, athlete and burns survivor Turia Pitt has written a guide for teens filled with answers to the questions students ask her the most on her speaking tours. Pitt also includes tips and tools to help teens navigate life and develop their confidence. Broken into themed chapters that incorporate questions and answers, activities and bright and funny illustrations by Freda Chiu, Good Selfie talks about self-belief, goals, support networks, challenges and developing resilience.

Our reviewer Dani highly rates this book, describing it as ‘infectiously positive.’ For ages 10+.

You can read our full review here.

YA BOOKS TO READ THIS MONTH

The Honeyman and the Hunter by Neil Grant

When sixteen-year-old Rudra’s grandmother arrives from India and a strange object is dredged from the bay by his father’s fishing trawler, life in the small NSW coastal town of Patonga shifts dramatically. Rudra and his mother embark for Bengal on a journey of discovery and danger, uncovering family secrets and trying to right past wrongs.

Our reviewer Bec found The Honeyman and the Hunter to be ‘a deeply moving and evocative journey’.

You can read our full review here.

The Boy Who Steals Houses by C.G. Drews

After a series of betrayals and abuses by adults, fifteen-year-old Sam and his older brother Avery are struggling to live on the streets. To survive, Sam breaks into empty houses at night, but is caught out one day, leading to a case of mistaken identities and a relationship with the large and messy De Lainey family.

Loosely based on Goldilocks, The Boy Who Steals Houses is a standalone novel set in the same universe as Drews’ debut novel A Thousand Perfect Notes. It paints a dark, intimate, and violent picture, lifted by the romance of Sam and Moxie.

Our reviewer Jackie found this to be ‘an emotional, no-holds-barred story.’

You can read our full review here.

Monsters by Sharon Dogar

Mary Shelley’s early life is reimagined vividly in this well-researched novel that starts when Mary meets Percy Bysshe Shelley and ends when she writes her classic book, Frankenstein.
Mary is only sixteen when she runs away with married poet Shelley, against the wishes of her father, and in the company of her stepsister Jane. In Europe they are drawn into the inner circle of Lord Byron. Told from the dual perspectives of Mary and Jane, this is a story of romance, radical ideas, secrets, tangled relationships and creative inspiration.

Dig by A.S. King

A.S. King is a singular writer, and her surreal, affecting and uncompromising style is loved by many Readings staff members. Dig follows five disparate teens, and an older couple, Gottfried and Marla – property developers sitting on a pile of withheld wealth. Malcolm takes care of his terminally-ill dad, David shovels snow and paints houses to save for a car, The Freak flickers through space and time, sexually frank Loretta imagines her life as a performance and Katie deals drugs through a drive-by window.

Connections are slowly revealed over the course of this beguiling and surreal novel that that explores family, class, gender, race and privilege, and looks at how questioning teens might overcome ingrained values and unfair systems.

Mike by Andrew Norriss

Floyd is a fifteen-year-old tennis champion who has played the sport since he was two, won countless tournaments and whose parents are deeply supportive of his sporting career. Floyd is on the fast track to sporting success when a strange-looking boy called Mike starts following him around. It’s not until Mike distracts Floyd during a crucial match that Floyd realises he’s the only person who can see his new acquaintance. With the help of sports psychologist Dr Pinner, Floyd strives to learn who Mike is, what he wants, and how Mike can guide him through life.

Mike is a quirky coming-of-age story that balances light and dark deftly.

YA BOOK AWARDS & NEWS

The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has announced its Book of the Year Awards shortlists for 2019. Congratulations to all the authors, illustrators, editors and publishers! The shortlist in the Older Readers category is:

• Between Us by Clare Atkins
• Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein
• Lenny’s Book of Everything by Karen Foxlee
• Changing Gear by Scot Gardner
• The Bogan Mondrian by Steven Herrick
• The Art of Taxidermy by Sharon Kernot

We recommended some YA books in our recent post about fostering empathy in kids and teens, and our Teen Advisory Board shared some of their graphic novel recommendations in their meeting this month. Older teen readers might also like to check out sci-fi and fantasy reads for non-genre fans and our reading list of books featuring witches and witchcraft.

EVENTS & LAUNCHES

We are so pleased to have the bestselling author of Looking for Alibrandi, Melina Marchetta, join us on Thursday 4 April, 6:30pm at Church of All Nations, 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton, to talk about her new novel, The Place on Dalhousie.

The Place on Dalhousie is an unforgettable story about losing love and finding love; about the interconnectedness of lives and the true nature of belonging. Joining Melina Marchetta at this event will be youth literature advocate Adele Walsh. Tickets are $30 per person, and includes a signed copy of The Place on Dalhousie. Please book here.

Readings Kids is hosting a double-whammy of events on Thurdsay 11th April!

Kicking off at 4:30pm is the launch of Aaron Huggins’ Live a Little. Aaron Huggins is a young writer from Kinglake, Victoria. His first novel, Live A Little, is a detective science-fiction story that reflects Huggins’ influences in the sci-fi, mystery and comedy genres. He will be chatting with a member of the Readings Teen Advisory Board about the art of writing and being published! This event will run from 4:30pm to 5:15pm. Attendance is free, but please book here.

Then at 6pm we have the exciting panel discussion Dark Imaginings: A YA panel with authors Sarah Epstein, Rachael Craw & Katya de Becerra, presented in partnership with The YA Room.

Join The YA Room’s Sarah Robinson-Hatch as she talks to YA authors Rachael Craw (The Rift), Katya de Becerra (What the Woods Keep), and Sarah Epstein (Small Spaces) about the fine line between horror and fear, and between suspense and romance, and about what it’s like to be published. This event is free, but please book here.

Leanne Hall is a children’s and YA specialist at Readings Kids. She also writes books for children and young adults.