Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • Pony – R. J. Palacio

    My review of this utterly fabulous book is now live at Kids Book Review – check it out and make sure you get a copy – you won’t be sorry!

  • Ten Minutes to Bed: Little Unicorn’s Christmas – Rhiannon Fielding/Chris Chatterton

    Penguin Australia November 2021 ISBN: 9780241489901 Imprint: Ladybird Format: Board Book RRP: $14.99 This series of bedtime books has been outrageously popular with little people everywhere – not to mention their adults who are the ones doing those repeated nightly readings! If you’re going to be on a perpetual looping playlist you want to be reading something you…

  • Banjo Tully – Justin D’Ath

    Ford St Publishing September 2021 ISBN: 9781925804904 RRP: $17.95 It was a hair salon day and as usual, I took a book with me – one I’d only unpacked from its box this morning – although I have some others still half-read, because I always love Justin’s writing. And this was no exception – I…

  • Harry Potter-ween!!

    So of course the piece de resistance of any batch of books, particularly at Halloween, is new HP ones and these two are absolute corkers!!! Bloomsbury Australia Harry Potter – Magical Creatures: a movie scrapbook Warner Bros September 2021 ISBN 9781526644299 Imprint Bloomsbury Children’s Books RRP: $29.99 Any HP fan would love this and if…

  • The Supernatural Survival Guide – George Ivanoff

    Penguin Australia September 2021 ISBN: 9781761043635 Imprint: Puffin RRP: $24.99 Here is the third in George’s Survival Guides and it’s not just in our house that each has been so anticipated. This one is totally going to tick boxes for a lot of your readers – and dare I say it, the geeky, the preppers, the curious, the…

  • There’s a Ghost in this House – Oliver Jeffers

    Harper Collins Australia October 2021 ISBN: 9780008298357 ISBN 10: 0008298351 Imprint: HarperCollins GB List Price: 29.99 AUD Without doubt books for young readers which invite the children to become part of the whole experience of text and illustrations are far and away the most popular in any setting, in my experience – just think, Herve Tullet, Beck & Matt…

  • Happy Halloween!

    I have a few fun titles to share and will be posting the reviews this afternoon and evening. We don’t get many trick-or-treaters around here as it’s a neighbourhood with a lot of older people and not so many kids but I still like to make sure I have some goodies – just in case!!…

  • The What on Earth Institute of Wonder – Lisa Nichol

    You can read my review of the The What on Earth Institute of Wonder now at Kids Book Review!!

  • The Magical Bookshop – Katja Frixe. Illustrated by Florentine Prechtel. Translated by Ruth Ahmedzal Kemp.

    Bloomsbury September 2021 Imprint: OneWorld ISBN: 9781786075666 RRP: $14.99 Such a sweet and happy book this is! Translated from the German with great dexterity while retaining just the right amount of that quirkiness of expression that European children’s books often have, this is just a delight from start to finish. Mrs Owl’s bookshop is full…

  • Cato’s Can Can – Juliet Sampson & Katrina Fisher

    Ford St Publishing August 2021 ISBN: 9781025804751 RRP: $24.95 Cato finds plenty of dancers from the local dance school but just as he seems to get close they all disappear. Finally, he is brave enough to go right inside the building and there they all are – the ballet dancers who leap, the rappers who…