Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • Music Camp – Penny Tangey

    UQP June 2025 9780702269028 A$16.99 If you’re looking for a character-driven middle grade novel to explore characterisation, and particularly, introduce the literary concepts of archetypes and tropes, this would be a good choice. You could very easily use this as a class serial read and then unpack these points and the accompanying themes with a…

  • Neeka and the Storm: Wilder Zoo #2 – Tina Strachan

    Harper Collins Australia July 2025 I have no doubts whatsoever that many of you will have kids who loved the #1 in this series, Neeka and the Missing Key. Of course, the whole animals aspect is a huge drawcard, but the plot with all its drama, humour and sense of adventure mixed together makes for…

  • Powerful like a Dragon – Christopher Cheng. Illustrated by Jacqueline Tam

    Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group April 2025 ISBN: 978-1-250-82939-9 | Price: $18.99 US / $24.99 CAN Pan Macmillan Australia ISBN: 9781250829399 Format: Hardback Pub Date: 29/07/2025 Firstly, I want to thank Christopher for asking me if I would like to review this amazing book, about which he and I first had some conversation around this time last year. Secondly,…

  • Quoll – Christopher Cheng. Illustrated by Cindy Lane

    Walker Books Australia July 2025 ISBN13:9781760655679 Australia RRP:$26.99 New Zealand RRP:$28.99 You know before you even open the book that it’s going to be magnificent when the Christopher Cheng name is on the cover. And with quolls excitingly in the news in the last few months, this is a very timely and most excellent new…

  • Quarks, Sparks and Quantum Mysteries – Lisa Harvey-Smith

     A Cosmic Guide to the Building Blocks of our Universe Illustrations by Aidan Ryan Thames & Hudson June 2025 ISBN: 9781760763138 RRP: $26.99 It has to be said – I am the least scientifically-minded person I know. It’s not that I disdain science, or am one of those people from a large country across the world…

  • Tomato Sandwich – an encore!

    Many of you will already have Tomato Sandwich in your collections [if you don’t – why on earth not? Get thee to the bookshop forthwith!] and will have seen my review of a few months ago. Now it gives me the greatest pleasure to tell you that there are now teaching notes available, to help…

  • The Silken Thread – Gabrielle Wang

    Penguin Australia July 2025 This beautiful new novel from former Laureaute and multi-award winner, Gabrielle Wang, is an absolutely outstanding, and almost mystical, exploration of East meets West. It is not a time-slip but rather a shift in the universe, from Chongming Island in China to Melbourne, Australia, with two very different young people crossing…

  • Celebrating Science Week…

  • Cloud. Wind. Wave. Atlas -Sarah Zambello. Susy Zanella.

    Thames & Hudson 2024/2025 ISBN: 9781760764500/ISBN: 9781760764524/ISBN: 9781760764517 RRP: $34.99 I have often mentioned that Small Person Me was a bit of a non-fiction nerdy kid and as such I had a passing interest in all sorts of topics. Most usually from my brother’s ‘general’ non-fiction books though I did have some of my own that were specific…

  • Into the Bewilderness – Gus Gordon

    Hardie Grant July 2025 ISBN:9781761211287 Price:AU$24.99, NZ$27.99 Publisher:Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing Where to start with this piece of magnificence, I ask myself? I know! I’ll start with this anecdote. A week or so ago, the estimable Gus Gordon was going to be at Quick Brown Fox in Grange and I had determined I would go.…