Review: Wink

Wink is a middle-grade fiction novel that is both heartwarming and hilarious. The protagonist, Ross Malloy, is deep in the midst of the awkwardness and confusion of Year Seven. All he wants to do is draw his comics and blend in. But Ross' life suddenly changes when he is diagnosed with a rare eye cancer.

Author and illustrator, Rob Harrell, authentically conveys Ross' emotions, challenges and triumphs, through narrative and illustrations, drawing upon his own personal experiences of having a rare eye cancer as a child.

Ross' best friend, Abby, encourages him to embrace his new profile, even when he must wear a cowboy hat to school, put eye goop in his eye, or when his hair begins to fall out. Abby remains by his side, cracking jokes and making him feel that anything is bearable, as she has done ever since they met in kindergarten.

Review: Super Sporty Girls

Super Sporty Girls is a celebration of Australian women and teams who participate and excel in sports all around the world.

As the main character rides, surfs, swings and runs through each page, she considers all the sports she might like to try and thinks about women who currently engage in every sport she can imagine.

Each page shows photographs of Australian women actively participating in sport with joy, strength, skill and determination. There are Paralympians, Olympians, world-leading tennis players, surfing champions, cricketing legends, football players and teams, bike riders, netballers, swimmers, sailors and many more!

Review: Mr Brown's Bad Day

Mr Brown is a Very Important Businessman and everywhere he goes he carries his Very Important Briefcase. But one day, Mr Brown's Very Important Briefcase goes missing and suddenly all his Very Important Meetings can wait. For Mr Brown's most treasured possessions are in that briefcase and he will do everything within his power to reclaim it.

Mr Brown's Bad Day, written by Lou Peacock and illustrated by Alison Friend, is an adventure through Mr Brown's colourful town. Children will love to follow the briefcase as it slips out of Mr Brown's reach again and again, all the while wondering what it contains that could be so important to him.

Review: Coming Home To Country

Coming Home To Country invites readers to journey with acclaimed Australian author and illustrator, Bronwyn Bancroft, a descendant of the Djanbun clan of the Bundjalong nation.

Under the deep blue sky, between the stark tree trunks, is the valley leading on to the three hills to home. Bancroft's words and images strongly invoke that moment of recognition of returning to where one belongs.

With each turn of the page, readers are immersed in the palette of leaf green, red rust, yellow ochre, deep blue and crimson. The flowing style of Bancroft's art sweeps readers along from inhaling the breath of the valley to the wonder of a majestic downpour.

Review: Over The Rooftops, Under The Moon

This sparse book captures the emptiness or loneliness we all may feel at some point -  far away on the inside and far away on the outside, even when with others.

JonArno Lawson's narrative tells a story of seeking and growing, and how things inevitably change. It shows how colour can come into your world, sometimes when you least expect it, and how we can survive life's storms that toss us about, and reach a place where we feel stronger again, within and without.

Review: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is a story of hope, peace and love. It is based on the life of a real child, who lived from 1943 to 1955.

Sadako was two years old when an atomic (nuclear) bomb was detonated over Hiroshima, Japan, near the end of World War II. As the story begins, Sadako is twelve years old, an athletic student who is close to her family and her best friend, believes in good luck symbols and is a fast runner who longs to make the school running team.

However, just as Sadako is running at her best, she notices dizziness and episodes of fatigue. She keeps her symptoms a secret, hoping they will disappear, until one day she collapses. Sadako is afraid she may have the atom bomb disease. Soon she is in hospital. Sadako has leukaemia, like so many others in her city who were affected by the radiation from the bomb.

Review: The Fabulous Cakes of Zinnia Jakes: The Crumbling Castle

The first book, The Crumbling Castle, in the new series, The Fabulous Cakes of Zinnia Jakes, will enthrall readers who love top-secret adventures and cakes!

Zinnia Jakes is a famous, but mysterious, pastry chef. No one ever sees her and the incredible cakes always seem to appear at their destinations when no one is watching. In this story, Zinnia Jakes must create an authentic, crumbling castle cake in just two days' time, for the Medieval Fair. But, how will she do it and who is she?

Author, Brenda Gurr, has created a cast of characters children will love. Zoe Jones, is a 9-year-old school student by day and secret chef by night. Yes, Zoe Jones is Zinnia Jakes, the famous creator of exquisite cakes!

Review: Nelson 1: Pumpkins and Aliens

Nelson 1: Pumpkins and Aliens is the first book in a hilarious new junior fiction series by Australian DJ, food writer and founder of a youth music charity, Andrew Levins.

The premise begins simply enough; Nelson hates vegetables, despite the fact that everyone else in his family absolutely loves eating them, his dad loves cooking them and his grandparents love growing them! Even Nelson's best friend, Olive, loves vegetables, leading to a long-standing lunch-swapping ritual.

The story initially follows Nelson's frantic attempts to avoid vegetables, but the action ramps up dramatically when Nelson invents a story about a teacher-eating race of purple, slimy aliens, and, shockingly it turns out to be true!

Review: The Family Travel Handbook

The Family Travel Handbook is a useful resource for adults planning to embark on the adventure of travelling with children. It is also for families who have often travelled, but are looking for inspiration for their next adventure.

All families are diverse in their shape and make-up. This book is primarily focussed on the subset of families consisting of one or more adults (parents or carers) with a child or children. This includes those travelling with infants, toddlers, primary-school-aged children and teenagers. There is a brief section on multi-generational travel, but this is not the primary focus for this particular book.

Review: Are These Hen's Eggs?

A delightful and surprising story featuring Hen, who is diligently protecting her eggs when a storm sweeps through and scatters eggs everywhere.

Hen was counting the days until her eggs hatched, but now she is searching for eggs, counting each one as she finds them with the help of her friends, including cat, dog, owl, goose and duck. Soon there are many eggs! Hen knows they cannot all be hers - some are big, others small, some are blue, some pink and some are even spotted - yet Hen cares for all of them.

Review: Edie's Experiments 1: How To Make Friends

Edie is ten-and-a-quarter years old and she absolutely loves science. In fact, Edie loves to experiment in every aspect of her life, even her family's breakfast choices. Her family are completely used to her scientific ways, and some of Edie's best memories from her old school are of the amazing experiments she conducted there. So, when Edie starts in Year 5 at a new school, she figures there is no better way to make friends than to bring along her science kit and start experimenting. Unfortunately, things don't turn out quite the way Edie planned.

Author, Charlotte Barkla, has created a lovable character, who enthusiastically gets herself into awkward situations, leading to laugh-out-loud humour. Edie is energetic and inquisitive, approaching everything with scientific gusto, including her often disastrous attempts to make new friends.

Review: What's The Point of Maths?

Have you ever wondered how to predict a comet, how to read a treasure map, or how to write your birthday in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics? These and many more amazing uses for maths are covered in this fun and fascinating book.

What's the Point of Maths? provides over thirty distinct ways people have used, and continue to use, maths in everyday life, from counting in ancient and modern civilizations, to finding ways to tell the time, to making aerospace calculations.

This book will show you how to count to sixty using your hands, how to work out who got the biggest piece of pizza in the family, how maths is the key to understanding morse code and how to spot the best discount in a sale.

Review: The Competition

The Competition is an enjoyable junior fiction novel about dancing, friendship and chasing dreams. The story focuses on a girl who is competing with the DanceStarz Squad at her very first national dance competition.

The author is American teenager, dancer and actor, Maddie Ziegler, who has been in the public eye since she was 8 years old, when she appeared in the television program Dance Moms, and has since appeared in music videos, movies and many other programs.

The narrative is told in first person by the protagonist, Harper, whose seems around twelve or thirteen years old. The themes of the book revolve around dancing and friendship, two significant interests for many tweens and teens.

Review: Windcatcher: Migration of the Short-tailed Shearwater

Every April, thousands of short-tailed shearwaters, lift off from their colony on Griffiths Island, Victoria, to begin a 30 000 kilometre migration from Australia to the Arctic Circle. A month later, the young chicks also leave the colony and begin the same migration, facing many dangers to reach the Arctic Circle in June or July. By August, birds leave the northern feeding grounds and head for home, arriving back to the colony in September, where eggs are laid and the cycle continues.

Review: The Beach Wombat

The Beach Wombat is a captivating picture book about a wombat, and its young one, on an Australian beach.

The wombats run across sand, past kangaroos and picnics, explore around rocks and venture between the trees. Here the wombats encounter a thick blanket of smoke from a fire, an experience that many children in Australia (and other countries) will currently relate to.

The wombats escape the ominous smoke and the colours transform into rich blues and greens as rain sweeps over the pages, refreshing the wombats' world anew.

Review: Charlie's Shell

Charlie is a snail who is happy living with his shell, until the day three mean slugs taunt and tease him. Charlie then begins to question his shell's value and starts to focus on all its disadvantages.

Charlie makes the decision to be like the slugs and sheds his shell. At first he is delighted with his choice, but soon awkward, uncomfortable and dangerous consequences ensue.

The story is told in rhyme, with a flowing metre, by author/illustrator Marina Zlatanova.

Review: The Flag Book

Flags serve many purposes, from representing a country or region, to signifying decisions in sporting events, to sending aviation, medical and military information. The Flag Book (The amazing stories behind the world's flags) provides an overview of all these aspects, including chapters on every continent in the world, pirate flags, sporting flags, semaphores and record breaking flags.

 Flags often act as a symbolic representation of a country or region, however, this book goes into so much more detail, including the study of flags (vexillogy), the design of flags, the history of when and why specific flags were adopted, and the various ways in which flags are used.

Review: Hidden Wonders

In the busy bustle of day-to-day life it can be easy to miss the beauty and majesty of the world around us. Hidden Wonders entices us to look around and soak in the amazing sights of our world.

This extraordinary collection inspires awe and curiosity. Giant pink slugs, a miniature city, an underwater post office, an island for cats, sacred forests and sparkling caves. With appealing photographs and interesting narratives, this book reveals wonders from every continent.

Have you ever heard of a park full of monkeys who regularly bathe in hot springs? Or a valley with rocks so unusually shaped they appear like a moonscape? These and many other intriguing tales appear on every page.

Review: En Pointe

En Pointe: A true story of hope, hardship and never giving up on your dreams is a revelation to read. This is an inspirational, heartfelt memoir suitable for ages 12 to adult.

Written by Australian author, dancer and actor, Chloe Bayliss, En Pointe is bursting with hope, persistence, growth, and ultimately, joie de vivre, the joy of living one's best life. It is my favourite book of the year, and my 12 year old daughter's (a feat never achieved by any other book), leading to wonderful discussions.

The story begins at one of the highest points in the author's teenage life, auditioning for and being accepted into an International Dance School, when suddenly everything changes. A mystery illness renders Chloe unable to walk more than a few paces. Her world of dance and music is suddenly replaced by hospital beds and beeping machines.

Review: Fantastic You

Sometimes it can be hard to see how wonderful we are; how every single person is unique and brings something special to this world. Sometimes we can be our own harshest critics, telling ourselves we are not good enough, funny enough or clever enough. This book reminds us that every one of us is fantastic. There's one special person you get to spend your whole life with: YOU! 

This book is full of love and kindness, the same love and kindness we often show to others, but sometimes forget to show ourselves.

Fantastic You is by the team who created You Are Your Strong, author, Danielle Dufayet, illustrator, Jennifer Zivoin, and publisher, Magination Press (Books for Kids From the American Psychological Association).