Just So Stories

June 2026

• ISBN : 9781923345256
• Publisher : Larrikin House
• Imprint : Larrikin House
• $24.99

I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally see this book a finished product as I have been privileged to see Lu Baker‘s ideas for it unfold over time, watching with great interest and such admiration of her talent. And given my penchant for all things witchy, this was always going to be a hit from that point of view. Teaching literary devices and incorporating word play has always been one of my favourite things to do, no matter what age the students and it’s been a continued useful standby of relief teaching as well. So for many lower school classrooms this would be a fun introduction to homophones and could then be extended to homonyms and homographs (aka heteronyms).

In most cases we would probably be really focused on this aspect of literary language concepts around mid-primary though most definitely some of us remember basal readers like Major Jump from Sunshine Books [anyone else remember that one?], that introduced this notion to much younger students.

In and of itself it’s a fairly simple premise for the narrative and author Jess Galatola [huzzah! for one of our own local authors!] has woven the wordplay into a cute story. Because, of course, the whole notion of ‘spelling’ can be, and in this case is, the foundation of wordplay that provides much scope.

The page with Wanda practising Look/Say/Cover/Write/Check will be familiar to many who have taught this strategy over the years. Although kiddos today won’t know it as this is a strategy no longer in use – certainly not in any of the classrooms I know of in Queensland, but I also enquired of interstate friends. So essentially it’s not a book to use as a spelling aid but as a focus on the fun of homophones and wordplay.

For me it is Lu’s sensational illustrations packed with colour and bursting with emotions and movement that lift this one to a new level. Poor hapless Wanda’s facial expressions are priceless; exasperated, despairing, cringing, jubilant, dreamy, , concentrating, astonished, smug, joyful – just a delight! My absolute favorite page is the double spread of the library awash after a creak is mistakenly incanted a creek [definitely not funny for anyone who has had a flooded library though].

Just a few minor details bugged me really. Everyone who knows me or knows my reviewing, including all the 100s of kiddos over the years, remembers my passion for endpapers so while the front end papers are delightful, the parade of other titles from the publisher is something I find irksome [I’ve mentioned this before]- particularly when there’s a blank white page previous that could have been utilised if you really must. Also, there’s a typo in the blurb on the back cover, which is NOT a good look at any time in the internals but especially where it’s going to be the first thing someone looks at. I’m also dubious about including the phrase ‘the fun of phonics’ [that addition from someone not au fait with current teaching practice?] in the blurb but there you have it. None of that is a criticism of the creators but are aspects that should have been addressed in the publishing suite of editor/proofreader/design team etc.

Going wayyyy back to my very first class – Year 5 at Nanango SS – one of kiddos’ favourite fun language games was Homonym Teakettle. We did use an actual teakettle, a little beat up tin teapot I’d found at the op shop, by the way – and they passed it around and drew a slip with a homophone/homograph pair and had to put the words into a sentence inserting ‘teakettle’ instead of the actual words. It was a simple game and often quite hilarious. Why not follow up your reading of this one with your own version?

All in all, it’s congratulations to Jess on another book to her growing canon and especially to Lu for such an impressive entrée to the world of kids’ lit. It’s a 4 🧙‍♀️🧙‍♀️🧙‍♀️🧙‍♀️ rating from me for readers around Year 1/2/3.