Just So Stories

Hachette Australia

January 2025

9780734420657 | RRP $16.99

Imprint: Lothian Children’s Books

This is a ‘bright’ start to a writing career for Tania Crampton-Larking, with a whole lot going on in this novel: loss/grief, moving/changes, mixed heritage families, family/changes to family, bullying, climate change, First Nations culture to mention a few.

Alex and her mum move from London, after a lengthy, mostly long-distance relationship between Hayleigh and Art. When they arrive in the Adelaide hills, Alex is not only like a fish out of water, but finds she is dealing with a nasty bully at school, who gets her into trouble from the get-go, and at home a teen step-brother with a lot of attitude. The landscape is wild and, of course, completely foreign. There are snakes, spiders and who knows what else?

Her step-brother, Koen, has a twin, Kirra, who has been living in Perth with their mum for a year. They are at loggerheads since the separation. Slowly, Alex makes some friends, one of whom is First Nations, like her new twin siblings. But Koen’s ‘friends’ especially Eric and Margie are as bad as the boys at school for their bullying and racism. Alex sorely misses London, her friend Preeta, and of course, her late father from whom she has inherited her Indian features.

There are a lot of smaller issues throughout but as Alex begins to bond with her small group of friends, all of whom are passionate about the bush behind their homes, she discovers that First Nations peoples are equally bonded with Country, and the special significance of much of the nature around them.

A terrible bushfire season brings the families and friends even closer together, when they realise just how much hurt is being done, not just to Australia, but the world by climate change as well as greed, misuse and wanton destruction.

If you are underaking a unit of inquiry on these topics this could well be a useful companion read or read-around-your-topic. There are teaching notes, but they are not particularly fulsome nor necessarily useful within the context of themes, being more general in nature, so a starting point at least. I think this is most suitable for older readers, capable year 5s but more likely Year 6-8 and I’m giving it a 4 ❤️💛🖤🔥 rating.