Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • Tubowgule – a Sydney Opera House History – Melissa-Jane Fogarty. Illustrated by Dylan Finney.

    Hachette Australia Imprint: Lothian Books March 2025 9780734423351 | RRP $24.99 I’m old enough to have walked on Bennelong Point before the Opera House was built, and then walk around the construction site as the sails rose ever higher [not much WHS in those days, no fencing around the site!] picking up bits of broken white tile.…

  • Young Dark Emu: a Truer History – Bruce Pascoe

    Imprint: Magabala Books Hachette Books February 2025 ISBN: 9781922777508 RRP: $29.99 Eleven years ago this month, I had the great pleasure of reading and reviewing Dark Emu – Blackseeds: Accident or Agriculture? for Magabala and in that review, I commented on how much new information I gleaned from this detailed and knowledge-based account from a…

  • March Wrap-up

    It’s been another busy month for reading, with more books arriving daily! Punctuated by The Kid’s 20th birthday!! some surf and beach, and catch ups with friends.

  • The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest – Aubrey Hartman

    Walker Books Australia May 2025 ISBN:9781761601453 RRP: $17.99/New Zealand RRP:$19.99 Now, how to describe this delightfully quirky and sometimes dark quasi-horror with heart? It’s a little bit My Dead Rabbit, maybe a little bit Coraline, and a little bit The Graveyard Book. And then there’s A Girl Called Corpse – and soon you will get…

  • A little time-warp…

    So this popped up in my FB memories from pre-blog days!! I had been doing a few reviews but I was still quite a newbie and certainly hadn’t yet started the blog. It was pretty nice to see my review shared in the Oz Kids magazine, going out to 10k schools across the country!! I…

  • One Day – Shirley Marr. Michael Speechly

    Walker Books May 2025 ISBN13:9781760659790 Australia RRP:$27.99 New Zealand RRP:$29.99 Two acclaimed creators collaborating? Of course, it was bound to be sensational. And it is all that and more. According to Frog, Mayfly will be eaten up by the world, but what will it matter if she only lives for one day in any case.…

  • The Haunting of Fortune Farm – Sophie Kirtley

    Bloomsbury Australia January 2025 ISBN 9781526642783 Imprint Bloomsbury Children’s Books RRP: $16.99 I enjoyed Sophie Kirtley’s debut novel The Wild Way Home tremendously back in 2020 and though I haven’t read the intervening books (one novel, one picture book), I had high expectations of this one. I was not disappointed. This is another MG novel…

  • Spirit of the Crocodile – Aaron Fa’Aoso and Michelle Scott Tucker with Lyn White

    Allen & Unwin March 2025 ISBN:978174331709 Imprint:A & U Children’s RRP: $19.99 Just last year some of my circle were saying we would love to see more Torres Strait Islander titles, particularly after the success of Our Flag, Our Story, so when this arrived I was very excited indeed. And this is a fantastic book…

  • Taronga for the Tinies

    Penguin Australia The surge in zoo and animal books is not just for the older readers. Here are some adorable board books for the Smallests in your circle. Taronga: We’re Going to the Zoo: Taronga Conservation Society Australia Cate James March 2025 RRP: $16.99 An outing to the zoo is always exciting with so many animals…

  • Teeth: You Only Get Two Sets – Magda Gargulakova. Illustrated by Marie Urbankova.

    New South Books Albatros Media April 2025 9788000072470/ AUD$26.99, NZD$32.99 All of us who have taught Smalls know the whole gap-toothed, lisping stages very well indeed. I foresee this book is going to be a big hit in both classrooms and libraries for those Preps-3s especially. Certainly I’d be taking full advantage of it and still…