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Our favourite children's and YA prize winners this year
Holly Harper rounds up our top picks for prize-winning children’s and YA books in 2015.
Winner of the Readings Children Book Prize 2015
Rivertime by Trace Balla
Rivertime was the magnificent winner of our very own Readings Children’s Book Prize this year. It was an incredibly strong shortlist, but Trace Balla’s graphic novel-style tale of a boy and his uncle’s journey up the Glenelg River blew our judges away. They said, ‘It is unique, we love its artistry and it…
A soundtrack to this year's best fiction
Pair…
by Atticus Lish
With… Carrie and Lowell by Sufjan Stevens
Because… With its exquisitely crafted, stripped-back prose that leaves utter devastation in its wake, Atticus Lish’s story about the relationship between Zou Lei, an illegal Chinese immigrant and Brad Skinner, an Iraq War veteran, is a stunning debut. The book goes perfectly with Sufjan Stevens’ latest album, which is sparsely instrumental and equally heartbreaking; its songs were inspired by the death of Stevens’ mother…
Road-testing our best cookbooks of the year
We invited our staff to test out recipes from our top ten cookbooks of the year for an office Christmas lunch. Here are the results…
Lian Hingee made ‘Best-Ever Cheesecake’ from David Herbert’s Best Home Cooking
I’m a big fan of David Herbert. I give his Complete Perfect Recipes to every teenager I know who’s moving out of home because the recipes are straightforward, familiar, and foolproof. His recipe for ‘best-ever’ cheesecake certainly lived up to its name – it…
The books we'd gift every 16-year-old in Australia
Every 16-year-old in Sweden will soon be receiving a copy of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists as part of a campaign to open up conversation about gender.
Here are the books we’d gift to every 16-year-old in Australia – if we could!
If I was going to get every 16-year-old in Australia a book, it’d probably be something practical like a cookbook – Complete Perfect Recipes by David Herbert has every recipe you could ever want, from…
Books that gave us nightmares in 2015
Our staff share the books that gave them nightmares this year.
Monsters by Emerald Fennell. This book gave me nightmares, not that monsters were out to get me, but that I was the monster. I woke up with a start and tears in my eyes as the face of my latest murder victim (in the dream!) faded away. I loved it! – Dani Solomon, children’s specialist at Carlton
I asked my colleague Holly if I was a total baby for…
Books that made us laugh in 2015
Our staff share the books that made them laugh this year.
The 65-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton made me laugh and giggle like an idiot. As an adult it’s hilarious and irreverent, plus it’s definitely good for your soul. Griffiths and Denton’s sensibility is an all encompassing kind of funny – the same way Pixar films make adults laugh. I say bring on The 78-Storey Treehouse. – Dani Solomon, children’s specialist at Carlton
I read Virginia…
On food and fiction
From an early age, books would whet my appetite. I would read glorious descriptions of food and immediately start dreaming of it.
I imagined myself high on a cliff above the seas with the sky a glorious blue and a Famous Five-inspired feast before me: hard boiled eggs, pickled ham sandwiches, slabs of cake, and lashings of ginger beer. I also thought frequently of the food in Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree. The characters who populated that…
Books that made us cry in 2015
Our staff share the books that made them cry this year.
I read the illustrated edition of Charlotte’s Web to my six-year-old daughter this year. Even though I’d read it before and I knew exactly what was going to happen, I still felt very emotional as we neared the end and shed a few tears when Charlotte died. My daughter was far more stoic. She comforted me with a cuddle and then reminded me that Charlotte would live on through…
The best book covers from 2015
Staff share their favourite book covers of the past year.
Nina Kenwood fell in love with a lot of pink covers this year
When looking at the covers that stood out to me this year, the colour pink was a recurring theme. I adore the bright, striking design on Fates and Furies – this is the kind of cover I can’t resist when I see it on the shelf. I have to pick it up. (And, I will add, it’s…
Five books that will get reluctant readers reading
Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
Whenever I’m asked to find a book for somebody 12+ who hates reading, Skulduggery Pleasant is my first port of call. This series really has it all: a skeleton detective and his magical protégée who track down criminals intent on destroying the world. It’s fast-paced and action-packed, the characters are so vivid you’ll wish you could meet them in real life, and best of all, it’s funny. I can’t tell you the amount of times…
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