Kids
No Words by Maryam Master
I adored Maryam Master’s previous CBCA-shortlisted novel Exit Through the Gift Shop, so I had high hopes for her latest creation, No Words. Tackling challenging topics such as mental health, bullying and the experiences children face as refugees…
A Walk in the Dark by Jane Godwin
Five teenagers are on a night walk in the Otway Ranges. With no adults supervising, this is their chance to prove their capabilities to themselves. After all, as their principal says, it’s just a walk in the dark, what’s there…
Naturopolis by Deborah Frenkel and Ingrid Bartkowiak
This is an utterly glorious book that celebrates the tiny creatures and critters, plants and fungi, that live with and around us in cities. In beautiful poetic language, complemented by watercolour and gouache drawings, Naturopolis invites the reader to look…
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
The Velveteen Rabbit was one of my favourite books to read at bedtime as a child, not just because I connected with the moving, emotional story – what child doesn’t want to believe their toys are real? – but because…
The Deadly Daylight by Ash Harrier
Twelve-year-old Alice England is a clever and curious girl with an unusual secret. She’s grown up working with her father in their family-owned funeral home, where she discovers some of their clients’ old belongings are ‘resonant’, meaning they allow her…
The Thief who Sang Storms by Sophie Anderson
The island of Morovia is home to both humans and the bird–people named alkonosts. The alkonosts, with their singing magic, have been banished, and are treated with suspicion by the humans, but a young girl named Linnet remembers the happy…
The Book of Wondrous Possibilities by Deb Abela
I’m both young enough to have grown up reading Deborah Abela’s Max Remy series and old enough to have already been a bookseller for a number of years, so I’m delighted to see Abela is back with The Book of…
Ella and the Useless Day by Meg McKinlay
No strangers to the CBCA Book of the Year Notables list, Meg McKinlay and Karen Blair are paired together for the first time with Ella and the Useless Day, a heartwarming story of Ella and her dad working together…
August and Jones by Pip Harry
I really don’t know how to review August and Jones without going overboard with superlatives. I also wish I was reading it for the first time again – that is how much I loved it.
This beautiful story is about…
Solomon Macaroni and the Cousin Catastrophe by Ashleigh Barton
Ashleigh Barton, author of the CBCA Notable picture book What Do You Call Your Grandma?, makes her middle grade debut with Solomon Macaroni and the Cousin Catastrophe. Solomon is a young vampire – only 552 years old – left…
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