Winner: Graphic Novel Double Prize Pack

Our lucky winner is...

Joseph Spagnolo. NSW

Congratulations!

You have won a copy each of Kayla Miller's graphic novel series, Click and Camp. 

Enjoy!

Thank you to ALL who entered. 

Review: The Wild Guide to Starting School

If you have a child starting school, or even preschool, then you should find a copy of The Wild Guide to Starting School to share with them.

It's a new book from Laura and Philip Bunting, and full of cute and quirky pictures and information for children and parents.

What will it feel like on your first day of school? What will you do at school? What do you need to know?

Presented in a bright and friendly design, The Wild Guide to Starting School will help you start talking about these questions and many others.

Junior Review: Starfish

This is a review of Starfish by Lisa Fipps. An empowering novel written in verse on a young girl’s journey of finding herself. This book will give you confidence and spark a new feeling inside of you, hope.  

Ellie, dressed in a bright blue whale swimsuit, innocently cannon balled at her own 5th birthday party. 

Little did she know that one incident would lead to a lifetime of bullying and a name that stuck forever. Her diary is not filled with personal thoughts or feelings, but a list of 'Fat Girl Rules', similar to a survival playbook. 

Ellie has found a home in her swimming pool, but when her best friend moves away, Ellie thinks nothing will be the same again. 

She finds comfort in her new next door neighbor, Catalina as they embark on a new friendship.  

Review: The Magic of Magnolia Moon

Magnolia Moon is the best friend you wish you had. 

She’s independent, creative, imaginative and fun. She’s quirky and kind and just… special.

The Magic of Magnolia Moon is the second Magnolia Moon book by award-winning author Edwina Wyatt, following The Secrets of Magnolia Moon. I haven’t read the first book, but this did not impact on my love of book two or made the read confusing.

In The Magic of Magnolia Moon, Magnolia’s best friend Imogen May has moved away and is going to a new school. 

Magnolia’s year of being ten is now filled with challenges: a new teacher, making new friends and learning to accept that Imogen May will also create new friendships.

Meet The Illustrator: Katia Hinic

Name: Katia Hinic

 
Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.
Little foxes, little bears, lots of details and fine hairs!

What items are an essential part of your creative space?
Materials to work with and music to listen to.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium?
I work in a wide variety of mediums - oil, gouache, ink, pastel, fabric, digital. I tend to go from one medium to another depending on what I’m trying to do. 

But recently, I do most of my work digitally. It’s a convenient way to create art even if I can only do it on the sofa for 15 minutes – which is what I usually have time for!

 
Name three artists whose work inspires you.
Hieronymus Bosch, L. S. Lowry and Marlenka Stupica. (an honorary mention goes to William Morris)

Review: The Boy and the Elephant

A quiet boy who doesn’t fit in has a busy family that doesn’t always see him. He finds solace in the patch of trees beside his home where he imagines up a new friend — an elephant. 

But when progress can't be stopped, and workers come to cut down the trees, the boy does something amazing to save his friend.

This story is filled with emotion and power. It pulls at your heart and makes you think and smile with wonder. And there's not a single word on the pages.

Review: How We Fall Apart

Ah, elite high achievers. Don’t we love reading about them? We especially love the loud splat they make when they ignominiously plummet to a hard, humiliating landing.

This is a Young Adult thriller, set in a super elite New York prep school. The characters are intriguing, four ultra competitive teenage “Crazy Rich Asians” plus Nancy, the main protagonist, the scholarship girl with a cleaning lady mother.

12 Curly Questions with author Pamela Rushby

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.
I’ve been invited to visit the ongoing excavations of ancient tombs in Egypt. And I’ve gone on a boat up the Nile. Which was all very helpful as background for my book The Mummy Smugglers of Crumblin Castle. Not that I knew that at the time.

2. What is your nickname?
I don’t have one, unless you count ‘Pamela’ being shortened to ‘Pam’.

3. What is your greatest fear?
Big brown grasshoppers. They give me the screaming horrors.

4. Describe your writing style in 10 words.
Delving into history and uncovering stories I have to write.

Review: Young Oracle Tarot

Obviously, it won’t be for everyone or even every library collection but this is just both beautiful and fascinating. 

The history of Tarot is long and extensive across cultures, and this is outlined in the opening chapters of this gorgeously presented book.

After this exploration of the origins, the variations in decks and the purpose/intent of tarot readings the text goes on to enumerate the various cards, beginning with the major arcana, each with a colour illustration, key words, and a short explanatory paragraph. 

Review: A Hundred Thousand Welcomes

A Hundred Thousand Welcomes is a story, a poem, about peace and friendship.

It's about welcoming people, whatever their background, and sharing culture. The welcome might be for new friends or neighbours, and it might be for people who speak a language different to that which you speak.

A Hundred Thousand Welcomes uses words of welcome in languages other than English, incorporated into the English language poem, to demonstrate how a simple welcome can be offered. It also expresses the specific cultural meanings, customs and food linked to such welcomes.

Giveaway: Graphic Novel Double Prize Pack

Looking for a book for your young tween that covers universal, age-appropriate topics like friendship, belonging and identity with a fresh, fun perspective? Well we have found not just the perfect one but TWO for you! These colourful, fast paced graphic novels by New York Times best selling author, Kayla Miller are our first fabulous giveaways of 2022 courtesy of our friends at Walker Books Australia.

Olive 'clicks' with everyone in the fifth grade –until one day she doesn’t. When a school variety show leaves Olive stranded without an act to join, she begins to panic, wondering why all her friends have already formed their own groups . . . without her. With the performance drawing closer by the minute, will Olive be able to find her own place in the show before the curtain comes up? A heartfelt and insightful story about navigating friendships, leaning on family, and learning to take the stage in the most important role of all.

Olive is sure she’ll have the best time at camp with her friend Willow – but while Olive makes quick friends with the other campers, Willow struggles to form connections and latches on to the only person she knows – Olive. The stress of being Willow's living security blanket begins to wear on Olive and before long, the girls aren’t just fighting, they may not even be friends by the time camp is over. Will the two be able to patch things up before the final lights out? The second book in the New York Times best-selling graphic novel series by Kayla Miller.

Read Dimity's KBR review of, Click posted last Wednesday to find out more. 

For the chance to win this fantastic double graphic novel prize pack, tell us in 25 words or less what your favourite thing to do at Camp would be and why?

Review: Twelve Little Festive Frogs

Twelve Little Festive Frogs is a Christmas story that is modelled after a familiar Christmas classic song - Twelve Days of Christmas. Except in this story, instead of a true love, we have twelve little funny frogs who all give out different gifts. It is a second book in the frogs series, with the first being Ten Yoga Frogs.

The plot of this book really is pretty much the Christmas song Twelve Days of Christmas. It begins with the first day of Christmas when ‘One’ frog gives a gift to a friend - Bea. It’s a parcel from a pear tree. After this, every individual frog gives a gift to another, with the whole process being repeated and building from the start. Every page is a lovely double spread with big bright illustrations of the frogs, and the page gets fuller and fuller with all the presents as it goes along.