Just So Stories

Walker Books Australia

August 2026

Australia RRP:$15.99

New Zealand RRP:$17.99

When The Kid was a little ‘un, and honestly – whether she was around or not – the Little Lunch series on ABC was always entertaining. I defy anyone who has taught primary kids to not identify repeatedly with the crew of diverse children as well as the often harassed teacher. And then, the books came along and readers were just as entertained.

Now even the younger kiddos, those newly independent readers launching themselves into chapter books have got their own brand-new series from the dynamic duo of Danny Katz and Mitch Vane.

And yep, it really is hard to go past Rory because – let’s face it – we’ve all had a Rory in at least one, if not more, of our classes. Heralding this new series comes the first two titles: Rory the Pretender and Rory the Salesman.

In the first, Rory is pretending ALL the time e.g. a crocodile, a spider crab, his teacher and each different pretend results in smashing his chin more and more. In fact, it’s a wonder he has any face left at all but as we know Rory is not the sharpest knife in the drawer and just keeps on pretending getting himself into more and more predicaments.

Kids will not only laugh but actually think -ummm, NOT a good idea Rory! So let’s hope they’ll be more moderate in their own imaginary play.

Next comes Rory the Salesman. When Tamara is launching her campaign to buy herself new sports attire, she decides to sell off her old scrunchies – not exactly a winning idea.

But when Rory helps her out he turns second-hand stretched scrunchies into Funny Pig Guy Nose-Scrunchers and makes an absolute killing in the market. The actual flaw in this plan is that none of the kids actually has any money so, instead, Rory collects on behalf of Tamara, assorted currency in the shape of wrinkled grapes, sand, stale crackers, dead leaves – you get the idea.

Kiddos will laugh uproariously as Rory’s tactics get more and more extreme until he ends up in just his jocks. All in all, these are a load of fun with both text and illos working beautifully in sync to create that Little Lunch mayhem we all know and love.

It’s a 5 🏫🏫🏫🏫🏫 rating and my compliments to the publicist whose inspired idea was to send them in a tuckshop bag!! Well played, Walker Books!!