Review: The Big Book Of Rights

Did you know 2024 marked the 35^th Anniversary of the adoption of the UNCRC? The UNICEF United Nations Convention on the Rights of A Child consists of 54 articles declaring the rights that each and every child on planet Earth is entitled to enjoy.

The Big Book of Rights is the genius collaboration between Queensland author, Dannika Patterson, illustrator Amanda Letcher, Children’s Rights QLD and dozens and dozens of young people.

After deep consultation and invitation to use the youngsters’ artistic and intellectual input, this big book is a glorious, colourful creation aimed at evoking curiosity and understanding of these rights in an age-appropriate way.

Children's Week: Book Summary: The Youngest One

We're celebrating Children's Week with a series of reviews, articles and interviews by or with kids! To see all our Children's Week posts, click here.

The Youngest One is a book about a boy called Craig Martin He is very passionate about AFL but this is an interest he shares with no one in his family. Craig finds life quite hard as his sister Julie is sarcastic. He shares a room full of bugs and has a brother called Leigh who teases him.

When his Dad loses his job everything goes bad. Everyone is devastated and they go bankrupt. When the kids step in, they go around helping random people do house work for a small payment. After a while their parents find out and their Dad gets depressed.

Children's Week: Review: The Breadwinner

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I thought that The Breadwinner was the most outstanding, amazing, intriguing book I’ve ever read!
I loved every single part of it and I finished it in about 4 days because once I picked it up I could not put it down!

Once I had finished it I basically missed it!

I loved the fact that it explained what had happened to Afghanistan, and that The Taliban was in charge and the rules that he had made about women wearing burqas and that if women had to leave their house they had to use their husband, son or any man as an escort.

Children's Week: Review: Parvana's Journey

We're celebrating Children's Week with a series of reviews, articles and interviews by or with kids! To see all our Children's Week posts, click here.

Parvana’s Journey was the best book I have ever read!  It was absolutely amazing!  When I picked up The Breadwinner (which is Deborah Ellis’ other book), I looked at the cover and thought “this is going to be boring”.  When I actually read the book I was so shocked at how good it was and here I am now sharing with you my book review on the second one – and this one is even better!!

I think that Parvana’s Journey is a good sized book and is just right for our age.  The book was very detailed and I think that Deborah Ellis is very good at hooking people in to her books.  I just wanted to read more and more and I think you will want to too.

Children's Week: Review: Who am I? The Diary of Mary Talence

We're celebrating Children's Week with a series of reviews, articles and interviews by or with kids! To see all our Children's Week posts, click here.

About the book
Who Am I? The Diary of Mary Talence, Sydney 1937 is a wonderful book about an Aboriginal girl called Mary Talence.  She was taken from her family when she was only 5 years old to a place called Bomaderry, where she grew up.

When she was 10 years old, a family called the Burkes adopt her and she doesn’t fit in.  After a while she starts to question why she doesn’t fit in.

Children's Week: Review: The Youngest One

We're celebrating Children's Week with a series of reviews, articles and interviews by or with kids! To see all our Children's Week posts, click here.

The Youngest One is about Craig Martin, an eleven-year- old boy who is keen to prove himself to the world. His big brother Leigh is always teasing him, his big sister Julie nags him all the time, his mum still treats him like a baby and his dad is so tied up in his work and is never around.

Craig’s family were miserable because their dad lost his job, along with his sense of humour, and he’d recently gone missing, leaving his family to survive without any money to buy what they needed and to pay the bills.

Children's Week: Review: The One and Only Ivan

We're celebrating Children's Week with a series of reviews, articles and interviews by or with kids! To see all our Children's Week posts, click here.

The One and Only Ivan is a book suitable for children from ages 8 to 12 years old. The story is about a Gorilla named Ivan who lives in the Exit 8 Big Top Circus Mall with a stray dog called Bob and an elephant called Stella. There is a girl called Julia who comes to complete her homework at the mall while her father George does the cleaning. Mack is the owner of the Big Top Circus Mall who bought Ivan as a baby and now Ivan has lived at the mall for 9855 days.

A gorilla’s job is to protect his family but in the mall Ivan has no family until the day that Mack buys another elephant called Ruby. A couple of days after Ruby arrives, Stella dies. Ivan decides to protect Ruby from Mack who is hurting her with his training weapon when he is trying to teach her tricks so she can perform for tourists at the mall.

Children's Week: Review: Who Could That Be at This Hour?

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The book I am telling you about is called "Who Could That Be at This Hour?" (All The Wrong Questions #1) by Lemony Snicket.

The Problem
People were trying to steal the Bombinating Beast, especially Hangfire, who had a few people help him. It was Lemony’s job to keep the Beast safe while Theodora took naps and cried once.

They lost and claimed The Bombinating Beast in the book, which I really liked.

It’s like everyone had a chance  in the book to have the Beast but Pip, Squeak and the Mitchum family. Sally Murphy almost had the Beast but missed out. On the other hand Lemony , Ellington, the Mallahan family and maybe Thoedora, because she works with Lemony, got the Bombinating Beast once or twice.

Children's Week: Review: Parvana's Journey

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Parvana’s Journey is a brilliant sequel to The Breadwinner, which is suitable for children between the ages of 9 to 15. The book is about a girl called Parvana who is searching for her family. At the start of the book Parvana’s dad died and they had a funeral. After that Parvana started her journey and along the way she found a mud hut village with a barn, chickens and a goat.

When she walked into a damaged house, she found a baby boy with his deceased mother next to him. Parvarna wanted to keep the baby, and after a couple of days she finally came up with a name for him, she called him Hassan. After another couple of days walking, they found a cave with a boy called Asif inside it. Parvana told him a story about treasure and they tried digging but they only found a very rusty old box of bullets.

Children's Week: Review: Parvana's Journey

We're celebrating Children's Week with a series of reviews, articles and interviews by or with kids! To see all our Children's Week posts, click here.

Parvana’s Journey is a sequel to the international bestselling book, The Breadwinner.

This remarkable story is about a young girl’s journey to find her mother and her siblings in a war torn Afghanistan. The book starts at her father’s funeral  and Parvana, disguised as a boy, has the courage and determination to continue the journey on her own. Along the way she finds orphaned children who join her in her search.

The book is not written for the fainthearted as there is a lot of death and brutality from living in a war zone. The story is well written and very interesting and it captures the reader’s mind. 

After reading The Breadwinner, I really wanted to read this book to see what happens next and I have not been disappointed.

The rating for this book is a 4.5 out of 5.

- This review by Jared McFadgen, a member of the St Mary's Catholic Primary School Kalgoorlie Book Club.

KBR Note: The Breadwinner was published in Australia by Allen & Unwin with the title Parvana.

Title: Parvana's Journey
Author: Deborah Ellis
Publisher: Allen & Unwin, $15.95 RRP
Publication Date: November 2002
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781865089997
For ages: 11-14
Type: Middle Fiction

Children's Week: Review: The Youngest One

We're celebrating Children's Week with a series of reviews, articles and interviews by or with kids! To see all our Children's Week posts, click here.

A boy named Craig Martin has a passion football, but his family is not too supportive. His sister Julie nags him, his brother Leigh teases him all the time and his mother treats him like a baby. The last thing that Craig needs is something bad to happen but something bad does happen. His parents are depressed because Craig’s dad has lost his job and they are running out of money.

Craig has made things easier for others in different ways, but just doesn't notice until his dad runs away and Craig stops playing football. People then came and tell Craig how his footy made them happy.

Craig’s dad comes back but he is not so easily forgiven by Julie. In the end they are a very happy family!

Children's Week: Review: Prince Caspian (Narnia)

We're celebrating Children's Week with a series of reviews, articles and interviews by or with kids! To see all our Children's Week posts, click here.

The book Prince Caspian is about four children called Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. They all get transported to Narnia when they were waiting for the trains to go to boarding school. They had to get split up because the boys went to one school and the girls went to another. When they got to Narnia they had an adventure with Prince Caspian that I found very interesting.

What I Liked
I liked the book Prince Caspian because it was very wondering and full of mystery. The blurb was very convincing so I could not help reading the book.

Children's Week: Review: Who am I? The Diary of Mary Talence

We're celebrating Children's Week with a series of reviews, articles and interviews by or with kids! To see all our Children's Week posts, click here.

I have never known what it is like to live away from your real family and with foster parents, but this book makes me feel as if I had known what it is like.

This book is called Who Am I? The Diary of Mary Talence by Anita Heiss. The book is about a girl named Amy Charles whose name was changed to Mary Talence when she was taken to Bomaderry Aboriginal Children’s Home at just 5 years old.

These are some of the characters in this book: Her foster parents, Marj, Matron Rose & other children in the Bomaderry Home.

Children's Week: Review: Parvana's Journey

We're celebrating Children's Week with a series of reviews, articles and interviews by or with kids! To see all our Children's Week posts, click here.

Parvana’s Journey is about a girl called Parvana who is journeying in Afghanistan. She comes across a strange noise while journeying, “what is it?” you might say, but you will have to read the book to find out!

I really enjoyed reading Parvana’s Journey. When you see the cover you don’t think it’s going to be good but once you start to read it, it is absolutely amazing. But remember this is the sequel to The Breadwinner, so make sure to read The Breadwinner first! If I was to give it a rating out of five, I would give it a FIVE!

Children's Week: Review: The One and Only Ivan

We're celebrating Children's Week with a series of reviews, articles and interviews by or with kids! To see all our Children's Week posts, click here.

Ivan is an easy-going gorilla who is used to humans watching his every move through the glass of his cage. He can hardly remember his life is the jungle or what happened to his family. That is, until a baby elephant called Ruby arrives. Suddenly Ivan sees his home through new eyes and knows he must do something to make sure Ruby doesn’t end up like him.

Ivan is a very friendly and caring gorilla. Ivan grew up in a video arcade in exit 8. Ivan LOVES art and TV shows and just because of that he saved himself and one of his baby elephant friends called Ruby. This all happened when they were in a prison, slowly Ivan’s life started to change because of his little friend. Ivan has many friends here at the mall, and Stella the elephant is one of them.

Children's Week: St Mary's Catholic Primary School, Kalgoorlie Book Club

We're celebrating Children's Week with a series of reviews, articles and interviews by or with kids! To see all our Children's Week posts, click here.

Today we will feature a series of reviews provided by Year Four students from St Mary's Catholic Primary School in Kalgoorlie, WA. The students regularly write reviews for the books they read as part of their group and we are very excited to have them sharing their recommendations here on Kids' Book Review. We are also grateful to St Mary's Extension and Enrichment Support Teacher Julie Gardner for introducing the Book Club to us.

The Year Four students at St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, have been engaged in their very own Book Club over the past two terms.

Book Club meetings are held fortnightly with the members coming together to discuss the book they have been reading and to fulfill the Book Club roles they have been assigned. Some of these roles include:

The Host: The host is responsible for thinking of new and interesting ways to conduct the Book Club meetings. Group hosts need to provide food (complete with recipes), beverages, costumes and anything else that will provide some atmosphere to the meeting in a way that is relevant to the book that is being read.

Review: Holy Crushamoly! (Girl V the World)

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Phoebe has never been considered as smart, but after a school speech everyone is shocked. Soon after, she is asked to join a school debating team. She is surprised, but this means after school meetings, competitions and hanging out with Jagath, her new teammate and secret crush.

But when Phoebe’s dad discovers she is hanging out with Jagath, he strongly disagrees with it. Phoebe struggles to understand why her dad is so against him, he doesn’t even know him! Now Phoebe has to decide whether to stand up for what she believes in.

Children's Week: Review: Verity Sparks, Lost and Found (Verity Sparks #2)

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Have you read Verity Sparks? Are you ready for some new mysteries to be solved? Then let’s embark on this new adventure with multiple mysteries to be solved! 

Verity has now found her dad, who is now nagging her to go to an exclusive boarding ladies college. When she arrives, a very rude girl, without even asking permission to come into Verity’s room, comes in and digs out all Verity’s treasured things.

Children's Week: Review: The Day the Crayons Quit

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The story is about a boxful of complaining crayons who are unhappy about how they are being used.

The main characters are Duncan, a young boy and his box of crayons.

Children's Week: Book List: Favourites School Stories From My Bookshelf by Pippa

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Favourites from my bookshelf by Pippa, 11, WA

Are you interested in school-themed books? Want some good reads for yourself or a present for someone else? Here are some great reads straight from my bookshelf.

The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling (7 books)

A very popular series of books about a boy who finds he is a wizard and sets off to wizarding school. He finds out about his dark past, battles with Voldemort (a dark wizard who wishes to kill him) and makes friends. This book is good for children ages 10-16 (and adults!)