Review: A Lemon For Safiya

When Safiya spots an old lady sitting on the kerb, she feels worried for her. Her parents sense something is amiss as well.

The family are quick to see that the old lady is confused, also that she has no English, and it is apparent by her clothing she's from elsewhere, at least originally.

Luckily, Safiya's Mama speaks Arabic and through some gentle conversation, in which the old lady recalls things of the past, they begin to get some sense of her but still not where she lives.

It is not until she is in their car, that Safiya notices her bracelet - which has emergency details engraved.

Review: The Boy Who Didn't Want To Die

One doesn’t often read a graphic novel that is autobiographical. I think Raymond Briggs’ is the only one I can recall off the top of my head, but this one by Holocaust survivor and British scientist Peter Lantos BEM FMedSci is an example of how powerful this format can be.

While it deals with an episode of history that is both terrifying and confronting, the format and the narrative from a child’s perspective means it is less so for younger readers, while still delivering factual information.

Peter Lantos, a Hungarian Jew, was 5 years old when he and his parents were deported to Bergen-Belsen, where his father subsequently died. 

Through many adverse and frightening situations, Peter and his mother survived Belsen, and while they were liberated by the US Army, they were, by that time, in Magdeburg which became Soviet occupied territory.

Review: Me And You

When it comes to Mother’s Day, it’s always a bitter-sweet feeling in our house as we each grieve for our own mothers, but we have each other and that’s important too.

Just like the grandmother and grand-daughter in this absolutely delightful picture book from Ellie Royce and Penelope Pratley. 

Review: How To Sail To Somewhere

My recent enjoyment of the newest Katya Balen book has been serendipitously echoed in Ashleigh Barton’s gorgeous new MG novel which has similar themes but definitely more mystery.

The two books written half a world apart (weirdly) have striking likenesses, though with a different take on them, which is great news for readers. Once they’ve enjoyed one, they will also love the other!

Bea(trice) Glass lives on a little island that’s jam-packed with tourists in the season and quiet otherwise. She loves living there, and she loves summer – not for the tourists, but because that’s when her favourite uncle, Byron, visits.

With parents always busy with work, Bea has a pretty solitary existence except for when she and Byron have lots of adventures and fun together. 

Review: All The Colours Of The Rainbow

The travesty over on the other side of the world has filled so many of us with utter disbelief, shock, horror and very real trepidation, because we know that we have certain elements who think in exactly the same way, have the same agenda and are determined to lie their way into positions of power.

I have many gender diverse friends, and, in fact, have always had them for my entire adult life. 

It has just been an acceptance, in just the same way that a friend might have brown hair or blue eyes – just who they are. I also have quite a few friends with children, young adults, who are part of the LGBTQ community.

Review: I Hear A Búho

Given we have done a little bit of learning Spanish here over the last couple of years, I was well pleased to know that I could not only pronounce all the español in this striking picture book but could understand it. Hurra! 

This a quite simple rhyming picture book with a mother and daughter enjoying a little quiet bonding time before bed.

Climb on my lap. We’re under the moon. We might hear some animales soon.

I love the first image of them cuddled up in the hammock under the stars. 

Review: Cheer Up, Blobfish!

The Kid and I have long had a soft spot [so to speak] for blobfish, going way back to her days as mini-Attenborough, so this book was always on my radar. And really, who could go past that sensational cover with its lenticular feature?

Any reader whose eye is caught by this awesomeness, will not be disappointed by the story and art inside either. 

From the fabulous endpapers [you know my thoughts on this topic by now] and throughout the delightful rhyming narrative, to the sweet and affirming ending, this is a hit all round.

Review: A Small Collection Of Happiness

Hettie is a smallish girl with a biggish imagination. She also has a biggish personality, that much is evident from the first pages of this new very different, somewhat off-beat new Zana Fraillon middle grade novel. 

She lives in a very unprepossessing block of flats, which look out over an equally unprepossessing yard, in an even more unprepossessing part of town. 

The whole town has an unloved, unkempt and barren look and feel about it, despite its ironic name of The Gardens. Yet, within this dreary landscape, there is still life and colour, certainly to Hettie’s mind, and as the narrative unfolds, that life begins to revive and restore the colours and happiness it was once designed to hold.

Review: Little Matilda And The Lost Bunny

It took Little Matilda a while to find friends so it is understandable that she isn't always aware of how important it is to treat our friends (indeed, anyone) with kindness.

And, as we know, for Smalls their emotions can run rampant, as they haven't quite yet learned to self-regulate these.

Little Matilda and friend, Jack, are off on a day adventure to explore nature: ducks to feed, koala and joey to admire, baby possum to oooh-ahhh over and all the glorious bush to explore. It's been a wonderful outing, until they reach home and Little Matilda cannot find her bunny.

Review: For 60 000 Years

I am the first to say we are privileged to live in Australia, and I am grateful to have been born here.

There is so much for which to be grateful, but there are also times I am ashamed of our national behaviour and attitudes (there will be more on this in a review coming up in the next few weeks). 

Especially, given I am the mother and grandmother of Wiradjuri offspring, the national attitude towards our First Nations peoples is not only a disgrace, but shows no signs of improvement.

Review: A Twisted Tale Anthology

The Twisted Tales were first recommended to me by one of my ChocLit (book club) readers a couple of years ago. 

She suggested we get them for the library, and that was an exceptional success. They were very literally never on the shelves and in high demand in our reserves.

At the time, I admit, I was a little baffled. I mean to say, fairytales? For secondary kids? Now that I’ve had the delight of delving into this anthology, I can totally see the appeal.

This is the first anthology based on the successful series and is a collection of short stories written from a ‘What if...’ angle.

Using Disney fan-favourite movies as their foundation, writers (of other stand-alone Twisted Tales) have brought together some highly entertaining hypotheticals.

Review: The Christmas Wish (The Wish Sisters series)

The Wish Sisters series has already established a following among those young newly independent readers who respond well to everyday family life with an added twist of fantasy and humour. 

These stories have a flavour that strongly reminds me of E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It, in which the tricky Psammead willingly agrees to giving wishes [with provisos] but somehow always manages to make them go completely askew for the children. 

Flick and her little sister, Birdie, are the main characters, and their Granny Aggie wished for them to have unlimited wishes when she found an old bottle with a captive Imp.

Review: Borderland

This is a really fresh perspective on First Nations YA, and was a hugely enjoyable and gripping read.

Jono and Jenny have known each other all their lives and have just graduated as the inaugural First Nations scholarship students. 

Both enrol at Brisbane’s APAC (Aboriginal Performing Arts Centre) and almost as soon as they have started their respective courses are given an opportunity to be interns with a professional film crew.

The unit is undertaking a documentary to promote a huge government mining country with the intent of making it acceptable to the traditional owners of the area. 

Both young people are elated at the prospect and not just because of the film aspect. 

Review: Aggie Flea Is NOT A Liar

Move over, Barbie - there’s a new girl rocking the pink all over town, and hers is fluoro! 

Meet Aggie Flea, whom you will immediately fall for,  because she’s inquisitive, imaginative and completely inept in most situations. Really, she’s a bit like Anne of Green Gables in that she never intends to be troublesome but somehow always ends up being so.

Aggie is ten, lives with her long-suffering mother and older teen brother, Jack, who thinks he’s the man of the house now that their dad has moved to London. 

Review: Listen

With a very timely arrival given the upcoming opportunity to make a momentous national decision, this is the new brilliant and beautiful offering from the team who gave us the sensational We Are Australians [CBCA Award for New Illustrator 2023]. 

Duncan Smith, proud Wiradjuri man, and Nicole Godwin collaborate again with celebrated artist and inspirational speaker, Jandamarra Cadd, Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Warung man, to bring this reflection on the importance of hearing the voices of our First Australians.

Review: The First Summer of Callie McGee

A L Tait makes an impressive departure from her usual historical/fantasy writing, with this thoroughly engaging contemporary middle-grade novel.

Calliope-Jean Maree McGee is about to start high school. It’s not the selective high school that her mother wanted her to attend, and that’s just fine by this tween who is keen to lose her reputation as the brainy, quiet one, and equally keen to lose her cumbersome name.

 So, this ritual annual family friends’ holiday is going to be her opportunity to become just plain Callie, and be ready to start Birchwood High, with the other kids in the traditional summer group. She’s not helped by her hovering and restrictive mother, but she is determined, and finds an unlikely ally in the newest addition to the pack of kids, Owen.

Review: The Black Cockatoo With One Feather Blue

Confidence can be a frail commodity for many of us, but, perhaps, particularly for little people. And, as a result, it is easy to imbue a particular object with special qualities that make us feel braver, stronger and smarter – whether professional golfer with a lucky tee or a toddler with a security blanket.

Black Cockatoo has a very special blue feather. Of course, she has gorgeous black, red and yellow feathers as well, but she knows it is that one blue feather that gives her amazing skills of swooping and looping, soaring and sailing through the skies over her valley. All the other animals are completely in awe of her dazzling displays. 

So when she wakes up one morning and discovers her special blue feather is GONE!, she is completely distraught, and feels both sad and alone.

Luckily the bush creatures are only too willing to help her find it. Brave kangaroo, wise emu and the kind quolls all join in the search and when they discover it was the cheeky bowerbird who took the blue feather, the mystery is solved. 

Black Cockatoo is so happy to have found her feather, but when Bowerbird’s beautiful collection of blue objects is suddenly whirled away in a willy-willy, leaving only the blue feather jauntily in his beak, she suddenly realises that she is just as special minus her lucky token. Being brave, wise and kind doesn’t depend on having a blue feather, just as our confidence doesn’t rest in any trinket we own. 

This is a delightful rhyming read-aloud with an easy, almost musical, flow to the text that is often lacking in other picture books of a similar format. The illustrations are superb, as one would expect from one of Australia’s leading flora and fauna artists with beautiful composition of text and illos. The themes of friendship, resilience and identity plus the connection with nature are ones that will easily transfer to either home or classroom setting and offer children much to consider. 

You can also read more about Australia’s black cockatoos, including the red-tail star of this narrative, here.  I’m in love with this stunner, and I highly recommend it to you. Available in selected bookstores. Find stockists and purchase online at www.jodiemcleod.com/books

Title: The Black Cockatoo With One Feather Blue
Author: Jodie McLeod
Illustrator: Eloise Short
Publisher: Wollemi Press, $26.99
Format: Hardback
Date of Publication: July 2023
ISBN: 9780646874708
For ages: 4+
Type: Picture Book

Review: Wanderer

If I were to use the vernacular, I’d say it’s been a long time between drinks Victor, but it was certainly worth it. 

Multi-award winner, Victor Kelleher, has crafted his first middle grade novel in fifteen years with this gripping and absorbing post-apocalyptic narrative. If you think Waterworld for kids, you might get a little sense of the setting.

Orphaned Dane, spends most of his life since the devastation of his village, on his kayak. The world has shrunk to few habitable places and even those are not safe from the ravaging horde who call themselves The Clan. 

Review: Rodney Forgets It

In 2018 my kiddos, in our usual countdown to Book Week reading all the short-listed PBs, voted Rodney Loses It our winner - oddly enough, the judges agreed with us (rarely happens, in my experience!).

Now Rodney is back in another hilarious but heart-warming tail - oops, I mean tale - and the small humans will love it just as fiercely as they did the first. In fact, I can prove it as I didn't just read this to review it, I road-tested it with three different classes I took for relief days a couple of weeks ago.

Michael Gerard Bauer (interjection: gotta love an author who heads up his blog page with 'just me rabbiting on') as well as creating top-notch picture books featuring a remarkable rabbit has produced outstanding novels, many of them award-winners.

Review: Our Dreaming

Goodjagah, little one, walk with me ... I want to tell you our Dreaming as the Elders told it to me. Award-winning storytellers, Gunai woman Kirli Saunders and Bigambul man Dub Leffler, explore a deep love and respect for Country and all her spirits ... past, present and beyond.

This is a truly beautiful book which was warmly embraced by the Year 3 class with whom I shared it. We all loved the text - which has the effect of being both soothing and gentle -and the children loved guessing the meaning of the words in language used throughout.

Kirli's lyrical and poetic words are so superbly matched by Dub's visually eloquent illustrations. We were all entranced with our close examination of them, and the chosen palette of subdued colours not only evokes the colours of the bush, but further added to the sense of calm our reading conjured up.