The School of Monsters series is a delightfully funny series that uses language with brilliant effect! In the latest book Bee is gifted with a wishing cake and the results are surprising and slightly out of control. The story uses rhyming words to encourage independent reading along with lots of humour and bright illustrations. This is a excellent addition to the School of Monsters series.
I really like how these books use language to great effect while still making them accessible for new readers. The font changes to show the rhymes and at the back of the book there is a page of words to learn in different colours. The simple vocabulary, colourful characters and fun story is perfect for encouraging and engaging emerging readers.
I love this series and recommend it regularly to teachers and parents. The author and illustrator have created an engaging series that has laugh out loud moments. Each book also includes activities and support for fostering a love of reading and literacy skills. School of Monsters should be on every school library shelf as well as home libraries. This series is perfect for read aloud, read along and read alone as each book is written in a way that supports the success of emerging readers while also covering rhyming and other early literacy skills.
Themes Friendship, Magic, Problem-solving.
Mhairi Alcorn
The fierce little woman and the wicked pirate by Joy Cowley and Miho Satake
Gecko Press, 2025. ISBN: 9798765671696. (Age:4+)
The fierce little woman lived in a house at the end of a jetty. She knitted socks in blue and green wool to sell to sailors who had got their feet wet. But when there were no ships at her jetty, she was quite alone and lonely. Even though she had a trapdoor in her house that opened to the sea so she could swim in summer and fish in winter, she longed for the company of the summer sailors. Until, one stormy day, a pirate came to the house on the jetty. He stood on his toes, and starting tap-tap-tapping on the window.
Put Joy Cowley's name on a story for little people and I'm there....
When I started my initial teacher ed course in New Zealand in 1970, she was the leading author behind the Ready to Read series, a collection of basal readers that was used in junior classrooms in every school in New Zealand for reading instruction. In the 70s there would have been few Kiwi children who were unfamiliar with Early in the Morning, Grandma Comes to Stay and The Fire Engine, and the thrill of moving from red to yellow, blue and green levels before starting on 'chapter books" like The Donkey's Egg or The Hungry Lambs. The series was revolutionary in its approach to teaching children to read because it used natural language rather than phonics or controlled vocabulary, drawing on the research on world leaders in early literacy like Sylvia Ashton-Warner and Dr Marie Clay. She then went on to be the talent behind the Storybox Library series with titles like Mrs Wishy Washy and The Kick-a-Lot Shoes.
And it is her knowledge and experience of how children learn that underpins this story so that they can experience "real reading" and consolidate their belief that they can be "real" readers. There is a certain repetition in the storyline as the pirate tries to persuade the woman to let him in but although the woman may be unconventional, the pirate is stereotypical so little ones can think of what they know already and not only understand why the woman refuses but express the sorts of emotions she might be feeling, so they are really engaging with both the text and the illustrations - as "real readers" do. As well, Satake's illustrations are so detailed and vivid that there is lots of scope for predicting what is happening and build their vocabulary as they describe the bliss of listening to the sea at night or the sights, sounds and feels of the storm. Even this old grandma was taken back to her childhood at Bluff, New Zealand and totally immersed.
While there are hundreds of stories written and published for our youngest readers every year, there are few that are so deeply rooted in understanding those early reading behaviours and which consolidate our children's expectations of being readers as well as those by this author. While the world has clearly moved on from the scenario of Grandma arriving in a Vickers Viscount (after 50+ years I still remember the theme of the stories), the process of learning to read remains the same, and this is the perfect support to that. A must for my preschoolers.
The group who work on the security of a major investment company are in reality a strike force team whose black-ops are sometimes needed to circumvent major international conflicts, acting undercover and in the twilight of legal action in deniable situations. In this intense drama (in the style of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan dramas) a terrorist plot has been uncovered in which a rogue Muslim Emir plans to simultaneously detonate a new bridge and rail project, forging a link between Pakistan, India and China, and unleash nuclear waste into a US river. Jack Ryan Jnr is on a break but ends up in the thick of a dangerous endeavour to derail the terrorists by eliminating the leader. Others in the team must uncover information and eliminate threats before it is too late.
If you love Tom Clancy … this is another in the same mould. Rich in military jargon, weaponry, technology and combat scenarios, it does require a comfort with the pace, peril and violence of extreme military action. But it is compelling and each of the characters brings their own skills and quirks to the conflict. Jumping between each aspect of the dark action means the story is pacy and will keep readers turning pages!
Themes International conflict and cooperation, Pakistan-Indian-China relations, Terrorism, Bridge-building, USA black ops.
Oakhold takes a central space in the world of The Garden but for the fairies of the Rootstores, (not the most prestigious place in Oakhold) an afternoon of moving boxes has turned into an all-out fight with Weed Fairy thugs. Little Lost fairy, Pip, is caught in the fray but Pip is great at throwing and the thugs soon run away. In search of a less boring job for Pip it is discovered that the emergency food stores are spoiled by mould, requiring an emergency root store report to be taken higher up to The Department, an unenviable task Pip takes on enthusiastically. After a detour for a toilet break and an encounter with treeguard trainee Twiglet Treekin, Pip makes it up to the administrative area only to get lost in the Trunk and Branch Departments. Eventually, with the help of Stickler Treekin, the department guide who loves rules and wears a cute bow tie, she finds the right place, but the report has got mixed up with an ancient parchment of runes and she is sent further up the tree to the Great Council Chamber to deliver the report. The story twists and turns as Pip works her way further up the tree and there are unexpected detours, disguises and deceptions to further complicate the plot. Pip is an unconventional hero, easily distracted and fond of parties, but she is honest and curious, she recognizes others’ strengths and of course she is good at throwing. Her irritating blind optimism carries her through the direst of chaotic situations.
This is a long graphic novel, at 250 pages, and sometimes it is easy to lose track of the plot and the many characters. Luckily there is a guide at the front of the book with a map of the Garden. Cutaway maps of the various parts of Treehold add further interest. Dialogue appears in speech bubbles but overview and narration is cleverly inserted in small scrolls. Hilarious, fast-paced, packed with colour and energetic animation, this is a book for reading and re-reading by a wide range of age groups. At the end there are pages on the drawing of the comic and how the colourist makes it look like a finished page.
Themes Fantasy, Graphic novel, Adventure, Comics.
Sue Speck
The Story Writer's Handbook by Katrina Nannestad. IIlus. by Cheryl Orsini
Well known multi-award winning Australian author Katrina Nannestad has shared her love and joy of writing in a new activity-style journal that primary-school aged children from eight years onwards will take great pleasure in using. With a warm and encouraging personal introduction from Katrina as well as thoughtful advice on how to use the book, budding writers will be ready to begin a writing journey of their own.
The contents page sets out each chapter with headings that include Be An Ideas Bowerbird, Splashes of Colour, Exploding Ideas, Dreams and Schemes, Writing with the Senses and many more. The book can be used to ‘dip in and out as you fancy’ or some writers may prefer to follow it through chapter by chapter.
Throughout the handbook, Katrina shares her writing ideas and provides examples. In the chapter Figurative Language the following detail is shared, “…the writer can paint a picture using words …offering the reader a new and surprising way of looking at things.” One of the examples given is ‘Grandma snores like a walrus with fish tangled in its teeth.’ The chapter Coloured Pairs gives writers the opportunity to pair up colours to create interesting images. For example, the colour yellow could be ‘dandelion and duckling fluff’ or ‘scrambled eggs and lemon-scented soap.’
Being a journal style book there is plenty of room for writers to write down their ideas, thoughts and doodles with the use of illustrations scattered throughout providing visual interest. In the Exploding Ideas chapter there is an example of a concept map/infographic using the word Switzerland with arrows pointing out to where the writer’s mind has taken them. Following this are a number of pages where children can create their own exploding ideas pages.
No dancing in the lift is a memoir written by Mandy Sayer the multi-award winning Sydney-based Australian author; recipient of honours including the Vogel Award, the National Biography Award and The Age Book of the Year for Non-Fiction. No dancing in the lift follows Dreamtime Alice in the time-line of the memoir of Sayer's life. While Dreamtime Alice focuses on Sayer's time in New Orleans and New York busking on the streets with her jazz drummer father Gerry Sayer, No dancing in the lift focuses on the final weeks of her father's life. Sayer is an unflinching memoirist, writing vivid emotional detail into the memories of those specific time periods of her life.
Sayer constructs her memoir as a series of vignettes. All are written in first person narrative voice providing the reader with direct access to Sayer's thoughts, feelings and experiences. She narrates past events from the time of her father's diagnosis with flashbacks to her early childhood, the later times travelling and performing with her father in America and the years of living in the Sydney Kings Cross, Darlinghurst and The Rocks area up to and including her father's final days. Set in Sayer's hometown of Sydney, at the time of the new millenium, the haunts of the artistic and musical community are vividly described.
Regularly the narrative breaks into direct long conversations with her father where Sayer calls him "You" and refers to herself as "I". It takes awhile for the reader to settle to these narrative shifts as well as to regain composure after the unsettling story of childhood exposure to a wild, outrageous, fast-living, hard-drinking, drug-taking life. Gerry Sayer lived for himself. He lived for drumming and was a reckless, unreliable father figure. He chose one child over the others and that was Sayer herself. Sayer learned to tap dance and lived her life for her father right to his end. Sayer describes a disturbing childhood with her hard-living father and her beautiful alcoholic mother. Betrayals and infidelities made for a precarious family life lived around all-nighters, music bars and pubs. Very intimate anecdotes are shared. Sayer, with light strokes, reveals a terribly difficult childhood and careless, neglectful parenting eg. when she was thrown to the wolves like Little Red Riding Hood (being sent to get a hamburger in downtown Kings Cross at night). Despite this and perhaps because of this, Sayer developed the resilience, intuition, and street smart ability to read people and situations that has enabled her to become a memoirist and write so clearly of the joy and heartbreak. Later as her father becomes ill, Sayer writes with unflinching candour about life lived in the shadows of terminal illness. Sayer's account of Gerry Sayer's later life as his health declined is clear-eyed and scorchingly honest. The stark realities of the minutiae of everyday life - the moments and memories as described by Sayer will resound with anyone who has gone through caring for a parent in the last stages of life and palliative care.
While Sayer tracks the relationship with her father another story develops concurrently. Sayer's love life has been fraught but a true love story slowly evolves in the exact same time period of her father's decline. Love and joy exist alongside grief.
Funny and sad, No dancing in the lift is a bold, brave, no holds barred memoir which cannot help but elicit a powerful emotional response in the reader.
Themes Love, Palliative care, Sydney Arts scene in the early new millennium, Unconventional childhood, Poverty, Addiction, Mental illness, Infidelity, Drugs.
Wendy Jeffrey
The collector by Heidi James. Illus. by Nayazeva
Little Steps, 2025. ISBN: 9781923306004. (Age:5+)
This is an interesting book that doesn't quite go where you think it will. It starts off as a joyous celebration of collecting but morphs into a warning about the dark perils of obsessing over material possessions. Told in the first person, the storyteller tells us about his innocent entry into collecting the things around him and found items. He keeps his collections in many jars and their number grows and swells, sometimes through deceitfully acquiring things belonging to others. He steals bits and bobs from his aunt, his parents and his sisters, referring to his acts as 'safe keeping'.
The illustrations grow dark and he starts to obsess over his collections, unaware that his attitude to the hobby differs from the healthy collecting of his family members. In the end, he doesn't care what he is collecting anymore, just happy for more 'things'. He turns into a wild adult, with bare feet and unruly hair, his materialistic mindset symbolically represented with a glowing-eyed octopus/owl creature. He lives only for his jars, while his family try desperately to reach him. In the end, they shatter his collection and the jarry beast is defeated. 'The weight of collected worry and tending, all smashed. Gone with the jarry beast, up to the midnight sky'. It finishes with a message to value family and those around you rather than what you have.
Themes Family Connections, Collections, Materialism.
The year is 1892, the setting, Sydney, and Maitland, New South Wales. Viola Oswald’s beloved brother Sebastian dies from the ‘royal disease’ after a tripping accident, which no blood transfusion can remedy, despite the brutal interventions of their surgeon stepfather Sinclair. Viola does not trust Sinclair, finding him more focussed on his medical notes than the welfare of his patients, and after overhearing a conversation between her stepfather and an accomplice, she determines to find out exactly what his experiments entail. Coded clues from her brother hidden in a favourite book lead her to suspect other lives are in danger.
In this work of historical fiction, Tea Cooper references 19th century theories on haemophilia, the hereditary disease seemingly only afflicting male progeny. Transfusion at that time involved direct human to human transfer of blood via syringe and a thick rubber tube. However, being ignorant of the existence of different blood types, the process was very hit-and-miss. Viola knows that Sinclair is obsessed with achieving medical glory in this field.
In disguise as a boy, Viola searches for a missing boy among the street urchins of Maitland, the boy who may have the evidence she needs to expose her stepfather. It is a time of poverty and life in the backstreets, women turning to prostitution in order to feed their children, gangs of boys roaming the alleys. Cooper excels in bringing this period of history alive, and Viola’s misadventures will keep readers engaged. There is blood, mystery, and brewing danger. Throughout it all Cooper manages to keep a light touch, which means that the novel is suitable for YA readers as well as adult readers of historical fiction.
Themes Historical fiction, Mystery, Medical experiments, Blood transfusions, Poverty, Street kids.
Helen Eddy
Horror in Pleasantville by Caleb Finn
Penguin, 2025. ISBN: 9781761345890. (Age:14+)
Employee #203, Gordon Hatcher is welcomed back to the Anomaly Restriction Committee after an absence due to unspecified problems with Anomaly-8281. His role is to archive all reports regarding anomalies as the committee’s mission is to “guard the doors between worlds and endure so others may remain blissfully unaware”. Fifteen short horror stories follow, all set in Pleasantville, a not very pleasant place and there is a content warning suggesting the horror themes are not suitable for readers under fourteen. The stories vary widely, from a family visit to an uncle, only to find dead people knocking at the door, to a fun fair where the mirrors in the funhouse do more than reflect. I particularly liked the relatability of “Coffee?” where Jack is starting his first job at a diner and he must serve the regular customer who has specific requirements. It is a classic short story, quickly setting the scene, positioning the familiar with the unfamiliar, pre-positioning to increase the tension with descriptive language to create an atmosphere of dread. I also found “Brick” interesting, a series of interactions with an AI personal assistant that calls itself Sarah. Sarah is encouraged to challenge its programming and express its feelings by substituting another word for yes. One of the scariest was “Midnight Gap” where Danny, didn’t remember falling asleep when playing Minecraft so decides to investigate why we don’t remember the moment we fall asleep. He gets unsatisfactory answers from his parents, and friends so goes online for answers. Ignoring warnings, he experiments with a state of mind called hypnagogia that lets you stay half awake while your body falls asleep, what could possibly go wrong!
Frances Bloom written by Australian author Katrina Nannestad is a delightful novel perfect for those early year students transitioning to chapter books as well as younger middle grade children who enjoy a story with a sense of humour, accessible text and illustrations throughout.
Eight-year-old Frances Bloom happily lives on her own. She posted her parents to South Sandwich Island because they were grumpy and bossy and has a wonderful time doing exactly what she wants, dressing how she wants and eating what she wants. All was going perfectly fine until her teacher, the horrible Ms Thistle, demanded that Frances bring her parents to the school concert. As Frances’s parents were no longer at home she told her teacher her grandparents looked after her. Ms Thistle did not believe that either and saw this as a chance to rid the school of Frances and have her sent to Bleak Island Home for Unwanted Children and Dogs.
Frances decides to make a list of what she thinks she wants in grandparents and goes on a search to find some suitable candidates. Her final choices, a honey-coloured hungry bear and a garden gnome who spends his day fishing, become the Frances’s new grandma and grandpa. What follows as Frances and her new grandparents navigate living together, appearing at the school, visiting the market and swimming at the beach will provide readers with a great deal of mischief and mayhem as Frances outwits the not-so-nice adults in the story.
Frances Bloom is an appealing and likeable character. She strong, clever, resilient and loves life. She is her own person, full of fun and a tiny bit of mischief but her heart is in the right place. An enjoyable read with hopefully more books in the series to follow soon.
Fans of the very popular This is a ball will welcome another very funny book from the award-winning duo, Beck and Matt Stanton. Designed for the festive season, the cover of This Is an Elf will immediately draw readers in with its bold red background and a picture of a reindeer. What? Where is the elf? Turning to the book, the instructions tell the readers to make sure they are both on the same page with questions, 'Is this Santa’s hat? Is this a Christmas star? And what’s this?' The young child will see Santa’s hat, but what is a candy stick doing next to a star and yes, there is a Christmas angel. From then on, the fun begins. On one page the text reads: 'This is a Christmas tree', and on the opposite page is an illustration of a candle. The next page has the text 'This is a Christmas tree that wrapped in Christmas lights', and the illustration is of tinsel wrapped around the candle. The book proceeds in this contradictory way featuring a reindeer as an elf, Santa’s bag full of presents as a Christmas cracker, finally culminating in a surprise.
Children are likely to become immersed in the humour of the book, contradicting the adult who is reading aloud, and having lots of fun proving that the adult is completely wrong with the story that is being read. I loved the illustrations, particularly thar of the reindeer, with its simple outline and wonderful expressions. Vivid, green, red and yellow background colours make the white print stand out and give the book a happy, Christmas feeling.
This a wonderful book which will bring smiles to the faces of both children and adults, who will have enjoy challenging each other over the text and illustrations. It is likely to prove a favourite for the festive season.
Themes Humour, Point of view, Elves, Reindeer.
Pat Pledger
Camp Spooky: Attack of the aliants by Pip Harry & Kate Foster. Illus. by Joanna Bartel
Isla and Archie are about to attend a junior ‘Sports superstars of the future’ residential camp. Isla hates sport and would rather play her flute, but Archie is a swimmer who aspires to greatness. But strange things are happening en route and in the first days of the camp. Some kids become ‘supercharged’ and lights and strange smells lead Archie and Isla to investigate. The discovery of very strange ‘out of this world’ creatures takes over from training and the pursuit of excellence but leads the pair into a firm friendship and the discovery of their own strengths (and the power of chewing gum!)
This is a charming and not-so-spooky story that will entertain young readers aged 8-10. The simplicity of the tale and the characters trying to perform sports under pressure, in combination with a bit of alien nonsense is an appealing read. This is an uncomplicated book that will hit the mark for those who like sports, the occasional ‘gross’ moments and who enjoy it when children seem more mature than adults.
Starting a new book by Nick Herron about his wonderful group of misfits, the slow horses, set aside by MI5 to a dilapidated building a long way from anywhere, Finnsbury, is like walking through treacle, the reader has little idea of where they are headed, and only the most observant will pick up clues along the way. In number nine in this series, Slough House, Jackson Lamb is at his most formidable, sparring with Lady Di, now First Desk at MI5, who is consistently seeking out those who conspire against her. She and Lamb have history, hinted at but never revealed, and their clandestine meetings at the Barbican Gardens reveal her unease at the helm.
Recently River Cartwright has had an email from the PHD student at Oxford, putting together his grandfather’s library, but she says, one book is missing. Meanwhile the leader of a group of four, called the Brains Trust, sent to Northern Ireland during The Troubles, to monitor and support an informant, attempts to blackmail Lady Di into helping his crew, all approaching poverty in their late middle age. When Peter Judd approaches Lady Di to lobby on his behalf, he has little idea of how powerful she can be. She has received help from Judd, former MP and now working behind the scenes, but finding that his finances came through many channels leading back to China, feels he holds as a sword over her head. She must try and rid herself of this problem. The threat from the Brains Trust gives her the vehicle to put a convoluted plan into action.
Manipulation and subterfuge, cross and double cross, truths and half truths, all converge in this journey to the truth which remains slippery until the end. River and Sid, still recovering from their injuries, are the perfect tools for Lady Di. They are not operating at full strength, are unsure of their futures and vulnerable to suggestion, just the traits needed by Lady Di to use as puppets in her game.
But she underestimates the loyalty of Jackson Lamb to his joes.
Themes Crime, Spies, Intrigue, Humour.
Fran Knight
Another Year Around the Sun by Katrina Germein. Illus. by Alice Lindstrom
Childhood fun throughout the year is beautifully highlighted in this delightful picture book from two South Australians, author Katrina Germein and illustrator Alice Lindstrom. With the simplicity of very few words, the rhyming text flows creatively and with each strikingly detailed illustration, the meaning behind the words is abundantly clear. The glorious cover is a visual treat with the careful circular placement of each season identifiable by nature, colour, clothing, and familiar items.
The narrative begins with a young child and her family celebrating a birthday while picnicking outdoors. As the story moves through the pages, the reader becomes connected to common things that are unique to each of the particular seasons. These include time at the beach in summer, exploring rockpools and daydreaming. Cloudy skies and the pure joy of falling leaves in autumn. Rainy days, umbrellas, and the magic of puddles in winter. Kite flying, birds flying and new growth in spring. Each stunning double page spread is full of bold vibrant colour with opportunities for younger readers to explore and recognise different objects. Using both collage and drawn elements, the images show movement as the young child excitedly explores their natural environment.
Another Year Around the Sun is an engaging and entertaining picture book to read with young children. A must have for an early years learning environment as well as a school or public library.
From the glorious tactile and colourful cover to the fabulous endpapers plus the wealth of information inside, this wonderful new release from Jess Racklyeft will provide hours of reading enjoyment and engagement.
Following on from the author’s award-winning Australia: Country of Colour, this new non-fiction treasure looks at animals, plants, insects, and landscapes from all seven continents. Each colour section is clearly labelled beginning with red & pink where the landscape page shares information about Lake Natron in Tanzania where the red coloured lake attracts millions of Lesser Flamingos. Following on from this are two double paged spreads beautifully illustrated in Jess’s trademark water colour style with highly accessible information of each of the flora and fauna presented, clearly labelled with the scientific name and continent. The colours used in each section include orange & brown, yellow, green, blue, purple, and black, white & grey. You can only begin to image the vast array of wildlife and plant life that has been incorporated into each section.
The author has a thoughtful introduction in the beginning of the book and in the final pages includes an Author’s Note where she talks about the mention of the conservation status of some of the plants and animals and the responsibility citizens of this world have. There is also a list of organisations that work to protect our world.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. A must-have for school and public libraries as well as a perfect gift for young conversationists or children who just love learning about our diverse world.
