Review:Max and the Haircut

Meet Max, who is just about to experience his very first visit to the hairdresser.

Before we even begin reading, Samareh Azadi invites us into Max's world through the adorable front cover. I loved the way hairdressing tools are cleverly woven into the title design and continue throughout the endpapers. These thoughtful details immediately set the scene and encourage readers to look closely.

This relatable story is told from Max's point of view, allowing readers to step into his shoes and experience the world through his eyes. One of my favourite moments appears on the very first page when Max proudly introduces himself: "I look like a lion! Roar!" It is a delightful opening that instantly captures Max's personality and draws readers into the story.

As Max arrives at the hair salon, he quickly discovers that it is much brighter, noisier and busier than he expected. For many children, this experience will feel very familiar. What makes this story particularly special is the way it gently shows how Wendy, the caring hairdresser, takes the time to understand Max and support him through the experience. Rather than expecting Max to simply cope, Wendy adapts and innovates, helping to reduce his anxiety and build his confidence. The result is a positive experience where Max leaves feeling proud of both himself and his new haircut.

The illustrations are engaging and full of meaning. Throughout the story, Samareh uses animals to represent Max's emotions. This visual technique helps readers understand what Max is experiencing internally and opens the door for rich conversations about emotions.

At home and at school, this sensitive and thoughtful story provides many opportunities for discussion. Readers can explore the powerful message that we are all different, and sometimes we simply need to discover what works best for us. It also encourages conversations about the wide range of feelings we experience, making connections to past experiences, preparing for new experiences, and celebrating the strategies we can use when we feel anxious or overwhelmed.

Max and the Haircut is a warm, reassuring story that offers comfort when we face something new, uncertain, or challenging. It reminds readers that understanding, patience and flexibility can make all the difference. A wonderful book for families, classrooms and anyone supporting children as they navigate new experiences.

Title: Max and the Haircut
Author/Illustrator: Samareh Azadi
Publisher: Otter-Barry Books
Publication Date: 7 May 2026
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9781915659798
For ages: 3+
Type: Picture Book

Review: I am Brown

'I am brown. 

I am beautiful 

I am perfect’ 

I am Brown is an inviting and poetic picture book that celebrates pride, culture and diversity.

The colour palette is rich and warm, highlighting the children and their beautiful brown skin tones, hair types and eye colours.

Hear from kids all over the world about what they like to eat and what they wear. Learn about the languages they speak and the places they go to pray. 

See their hopes for the future, their passions and gifts, and that no two children are exactly the same.

Review: Girls like

‘Girls Like’ is a vibrant and uplifting celebration filled with warmth, energy and heart. Katrina’s rhythmic language flows beautifully across each page while Deb’s bright and expressive illustrations capture creativity, individuality and joy. Together, they have created a book that feels inclusive, empowering and full of possibility.

With 160 girls represented throughout the illustrations, this stunning book celebrates girls in all their strength, personality, interests and uniqueness.

Review: My Super Uncle

A striking cover and dazzling end papers promote the joy that fills this gorgeous picture book that speaks of love in its many forms.

Imaginative rhyming text accompanies vibrant colour illustrations which spill over every page, always focusing on the two characters - the girl and her super interesting uncle, with backgrounds of family scenes and the natural world.

Review: How To Be A Fantastic Sensational Good Enough Kid

Cheerful, warm, vibrant, satisfying to hold and chock full of brilliant information for celebrating uniqueness (or for when you don’t feel quite enough), this book is a game-changer. A life raft. A first aid kit. I could go on, but I won’t.

With a team of earnest, hilarious little animals representing the various parts of your brain, and a friendly narrator taking you by the hand from the get-go, how could it be anything but magic!

Whether you’re feeling average, isolated, scared, unable to make a friend – or perhaps you’re aware that you’re winning at everything when others are not! – this book contains strategies and ideas for all the variables that life throws up.

Review: The Amazing Generation – Your Guide To Fun And Freedom In A Screen-filled World

Encouraging young readers to strengthen their powers of attention and think for themselves, The Amazing Generation lays out scientific and anecdotal evidence of the deliberately addictive nature of social media and smartphones.

There are a multitude of fabulous ideas in its clever and appealing 'Rebel’s Code':

Use technology as a tool. Don’t let technology use you! Fill your life with real friendship, freedom and fun.

The book encourages us all to outsmart the tech companies – or to at least think about our daily habits. To find our own ways to switch off, have fun, connect in real life and create fulfilment, whether we're plugged in or not.

It also helps us to think about who we look up to – and why.

Fascinating anecdotes (did you know that many who live and work in the tech industry will NEVER let their children have social media or smartphones??) and stories from real life young-adult rebels who’ve ditched tech and not only survived but thrived, are all parts of this journey.

Review: Myra in the Middle

As the oldest child in my family, I could tell you many stories about how difficult it can be to have to ‘pave the way’ for my siblings. However, I have no idea of the trials and tribulations of being the youngest child – or the middle child for that matter.

Happily, there are books that address such matters, allowing us all a window into the experiences of others.

Up until the birth of her baby brother, seven-year-old Myra was the youngest of two, but now she is in the new position of ‘middle child’. 

It’s a bit of a nothing zone – a space where she's invisible, forgotten and not the ‘-est’ of anything. Myra’s not quite sure what her role is or where she fits anymore, only that she’s been relegated to the squashy middle seat in the car and she's been given the position of midfielder in her soccer team.

Review: Mary Fowler: Mary's Game / Mary Fowler: Beach Party

Mary Fowler, one of our inspirational Matilda football stars, has co-written with Jasmin McGaughey a four-book series to bring young readers a fun and exciting new series about friendship, school, sporty tales and celebrating special events.

These short chapter books with simple texts and beautiful black and white illustrations by CBCA notable illustrator Cate James, are ideal for emerging readers transitioning from school readers to independent reading.

Both Mary and Jasmin have drawn upon their own childhood experiences in Northern Queensland to create stories that will not only will feel familiar to their young readers, but also engage and entertain them.

Review: Freddie Jones: The Mystery of the Troublesome Trees

Kate Foster has become such a leading light in middle grade novels featuring neuro-diverse characters. In this, she brings her own personal experience, so always there is such authenticity and wonderful voice. With this new series, she hooks into the ever-popular mystery genre and, more especially, kid investigators which will have great appeal for such a wide readership.

Along with that, this new narrative also has a strong family theme and, in particular, the connection between quirky grandchild and equally quirky grandmother. Freddie Jones is autistic and quite matter-of-fact about that. He is very self-aware and is generally able to self-regulate. His great asset in this is Hobnob, his assistance dog. 

Review: Inclusion: Handbooks for Little Humans

Inclusion is the second book, in the Handbooks for Little Humans series. It opens again with A Note to Big Humans.

What does inclusion mean? It is when children listen and learn from others who open windows and doors to their lives. Then, knowing more, invite outsiders into their circle and make them feel wanted - regardless of their differences - for there are those who may be afraid or shy and believe they don’t or won’t fit into an existing group of friends.

In Inclusion, there are many examples of what differences there are everywhere, in everything and everyone; how each person is individual – special, someone who has something to offer others.

Review: The Umbrella

Most of us at some point have heard a version of the phrase, ‘under the same umbrella’... a blanket term used to package a somewhat diverse group of people under one label. But what happens when a child doesn’t fit under this umbrella no matter how hard they try?

Author Niki Foreman has used her parental experience with neurodivergence to write Umbrella, the story of a child trying to find their place in the world. 

Review: Integrity: Handbooks for Little Human

Integrity, the first book in the brilliant Handbooks for Little Humans series, opens with a warm address to Big Humans. 

In a direct, friendly tone, author Zanni Louise approaches the everyday habits of a child’s life.

Scenes of vibrant colour and a collective audience introduce the word Integrity, presenting instances when the meaning is activated.

Values come under the heading integrity, dressed as a jarful of jellybeans. Delightful child characters experience lessons of the heart and mind when confronted with a value challenge. Following the instinct which lives inside them, they're rewarded with the tremendous feeling of having achieved something wonderful.

Guest Post: Shannon Stevens on Knowing When To Talk About It

When do you talk about it? I mean, when do you explain to your child that differences are treasures?

I work with little ones and their families every day. I am an Occupational Therapist that provides home and community-based services to the birth to three population. I join them in every moment of life for sometimes a period of 36 months.

I am welcomed into their homes, I sit on their floor, I sometimes join them in a cup of coffee and I kiss their babies. I am so comfortable in this element that I now cannot understand or even see colour, creed, or sexual differences.

My job is to NOT see differences, but to see POSSIBILITIES. My values are to promote the inherent good in people and the capabilities we all share. 

Review: This is Us - Essential Australian Poems for Young People

There is music in everything around us. The music of poetry reflects the music of Life itself. 

That's how it is in This is Us: Essential Poems for Younger Readers, a celebration of life. 

An outstanding collection of poetry chosen by Libby Hathorn and Jude Fell, it contains 61 poems chosen from states all over Australia. 

At times, full of nonsense and laughter, they include the sky and Earth, and everything in between. 

Lots of free verse is mixed in with rhyming and rhythmic poems - about Nitz, mosquitoes, swans in their majestic beauty, wombats and lyrebirds.  

Tender and deeply moving ones such as 

Review: Ariana Treasure: The Perfect Day

The versatile Karen Erasmus brings Jacqueline de Rose Ahern’s characters to life in another visit to the Treasure Chest thrift shop, where Ariana Treasure and her mum live and serve their community.

Ariana’s Aunt Grace is getting married. 

She wants everything to be perfect - and blue. 

Additional responsibilities come with the role of flower girl. 

Ariana must keep an eye on the wedding cake with its blue icing that matches the colour of the wedding dress.

The thrift shop is pulsing with excitement. There is so much to consider, including how they will transport the cake to the park where the wedding will be held. 

Decision-making frequently includes family members, sometimes their diverse group of friends as well. 

Review: Where Shall We Go Today?

Summer holidays, a time of endless possibilities and unfettered adventures. Anything and everything are possible because holiday plans and expectations know no boundaries.

It’s precisely this spirit of joie de vivre that a closeknit group of neighbourhood kids invest on their holidays together. 

And just like the sensitively portrayed array of cultures and countries they embrace, so too do their travel aspirations take on an international flair.

Review: 11 Ruby Road 1950

The third book in the fantastic Ruby Road series, 11 Ruby Road 1950, throws open the doors of history on the post-war years. 

Light is shed on the lives of the people living on Ruby Road; lives well-lived with love and kindness shared, entwined with one another, regardless of their differences.

Mum Betty has not been herself since the birth of baby Maria. 

Gran arranges for her to spend some time in the country to recuperate from what she tells everybody, is a bout of influenza.

Twelve-year-old Patsy is sent for her summer holidays to Ruby Road where Uncle Alex and Aunt Mary own a Milk Bar. 

She hopes to keep busy to prevent becoming bored, while filling her sketchbook which is her constant companion, with whatever she sees. 

Review: Edie Tells A Lie

Edie Tells A Lie is a tender, compelling story about family, friendship, loneliness, starting over, and the layered consequences of making a mistake.

Told from Edie’s point of view (but not in the first person), Edie Tells A Lie feels very intimate because the reader is privy to her raw thought processes and dreams. 

Like the story itself, the character of Edie is both vulnerable and strong. Ten-year old Edie and her bestie, Bowie, have grown up living next door to each other. 

Each knows the other so well, that even when life throws up challenges their bond cannot be broken. That’s how it has always been.

Until now.

Because Bowie has left town. She’s moved far, far away, and is not responding to any of Edie’s messages. She is obviously having the best time without Edie.

Review: Wombat Dreaming

What a gorgeous book this is. As well as a purring rhythmic narrative from master crafter Caz Goodwin, the illustrations from emerging artist Zoe Bennett are to die for. 

Well, maybe we don’t need to be that dramatic but you know what I mean.

Lil desperately wanted

to join in the class.

But each time she tried,

She’d land PLONK on the grass.

Review: My Name Is Jemima - A Tale Of A Guide Dog Superstar

There is so much to love about this delightful book featuring a guide dog and her person – written by Jemima the guide-dog’s real-life handler!

Meet Jemima, a loveable Labrador with a very important job!

Jemima is a very good dog who loves all the usual doggy things such as going to the park, playing games, a good old tummy scratch and of course, dinner.

But she’s also got a very, very important job to do – being the eyes and ears for her blind handler, who she loves more than anything in the world.

From busy street crossings to cosy moments at home, Jemima balances her fun-loving nature with the focus and dedication needed to be an extraordinary guide dog.