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Adventures Unlimited #1: The Land of Lost Things – Andy Griffiths. Illustrated by Bill Hope
Pan Macmillan Australia August 2024 Imprint: Pan Australia ISBN: 9781761268267 RRP: $16.99 By coincidence the Ipswich StoryFest starts today [4/8] and it was at that kids lit festival, very early on in my teacher-librarian career (possibly around 1998?) that I first met Andy Griffiths and enjoyed the uproarious hilarity of his presentation [the exploding check out…
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Helping Little Star – Sally Morgan and Blaze Kwaymullina. Illustrations by Sally Morgan.
Walker Books Australia July 2024 ISBN13:9781760658700 Australia RRP:$16.99 New Zealand RRP:$18.99 August 4 is National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day so what a better to mark that than with some reviews of some wonderful new titles. What an absolutely charming story this is for Smalls! It is essentially quite simple but could easily develop into…
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Oceans at Night – Vanessa Pirotta. Illustrated by Cindy Lane.
June 2024 | $ 24.99ISBN: 9781486317233 Publisher: CSIRO Publishing I’ve reviewed quite a few beautiful ‘ocean’ PBs, both fictional and narrative non-fiction, but not so many that focus on the ocean at night. This is just a stunning addition, crammed with absolutely glorious illustrations (and oh! those endpapers!), lyrical language and fascinating facts with which…
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Book Week Ideas
Go to Substack for the full article Simple costume hacks from Hachette Costume inspo from Teach Starter
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The Voyage of Whale and Calf – Vanessa Pirotta. Illustrated by Samantha Metcalfe.
CSIRO Publishing April 2022 ISBN: 9781486315109 RRP: $22.99 This beautiful book only came my way recently but what perfect timing as I have a little oceanic theme going on, and also it’s whale season for us. Last year I treated myself to a day on the Eyespy our local, much-awarded whale watching company and it…
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Buckham’s Bombers: the Australian airmen who hunted Hitler’s deadliest battleship – Mark Baker
Allen & Unwin July 2024 ISBN:9781761471186 RRP: $34.99 First of all, I want to especially thank Allen & Unwin for giving me the opportunity to review this. Although my Father Bear’s squadron was the 514, it was still a Lancaster outfit with an almost entirely Australian crew – one of many who were the workhorses…
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Drop into the Ocean
Hardie Grant Explore June 2024 9781741178951 $24.99 Way back in March (and it really does feel like WAY back!) I was asked to create teaching notes for this sensational book and what a joyful task it was. This not only looks beautiful and fun, but is one of those wonderful teaching-by-stealth narrative non-fictions that kiddos…
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The Sea in Me – Cody Simpson. Written with Jess Black. Illustrated by Amandine Thomas.
Penguin Australia June 2024 One of the reasons we love where we live is that it is only a five minute walk to the sea. We see the placid ripples of Moreton Bay every single day and it never fails to soothe us, no matter how we are feeling or what kind of day it’s…
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Billie’s Buzz – Alison Brown
Harper Collins Australia July 2024 To finish off this week’s little theme of mini-beasts comes this enchanting book from Alison Brown showcasing the extraordinary talents of bees! Take a bow, bees of the world bee-cause we know you are the absolute superstars of the insect world. When Billie sees a poster for the upcoming Pet…
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