Kids
The Zebra's Great Escape by Katherine Rundell & Sara Ogilvie (illus.)
From the moment our feisty protagonist, Mink, responds to the desperate cry for help from a little zebra (whose parents have been abducted) the reader knows they’re in for a wildly exuberant adventure of daring and rescue! Fiercely determined and…
Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories by Joyce Lankester Brisley
Millicent Margaret Amanda (or Milly-Molly-Mandy for short) is a small girl who lives in an idyllic English village sometime in the 1920s, and when I was a small girl, living in suburban Melbourne sometime in the 1980s, I completely adored…
My Strange Shrinking Parents by Zeno Sworder
When my daughter was young, I told her that while she was small it was my job to look after her, but that one day I would be small and she would need to take care of me. In this…
Chippy Chasers: Chippy Jackpot by Sam Cotton
Chippy jackpot! Can’t argue with a title like that, hey? This is a graphic-novel chapter book, and it is very funny.
It’s bedtime in Sydney and Grandgull has the kids enthralled with a dramatic heist story from days gone by…
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…
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