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Picture Book Month Bonus: The Cockatoo Crew #1 and #2 – Lora Inak. Illustrations by Kruti Desai.
UWA Publishing RRP: $15.99 This is a brilliant new JF series that all kids will eagerly engage with and enjoy. The whole is set in Cockatoo Hill English Language School and casts a group of eight culturally diverse, enthusiastic and delightful refugee kids as main characters. Despite their differences in experiences, cultural backgrounds, language and…
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Confetti and the Rainbow Garden – Shane Jenek aka Courtney Act. Illustrated by Dylan Finney.
Hardie Grant Australia October 2025 Imprint: Pantera Press ISBN:9781763550735 Price:AU$22.99, NZ$24.99 After a hugely successful debut with their memoir Caught in the Act, Shane Jenek/Courtney Act now presents a timely book that encourages young people to understand the shades of difference between us all. Confetti is one of a group of cousins each with their…
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Being Indy – Zoe Gaetjens. Illustrated by Estee Sarsfield
Westwords October 2025 RRP $29.95 ISBN: 9781923044517 This is another intriguing and very different title from Westwords, and another that can be described as a fable. This a timeless narrative about one’s internal desire to fit in and be accepted, and the lengths to which some will go to do so. I love these opening…
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Guess How I Was Born – Susanne Gervay. Illustrated by Carolyn Daly.
Larrikin House June 2025 978192334510 I’m far from being the only educator who has worked with children from diverse family circumstances. Going right back to my first year of teaching and to the present day: same sex parents, single parents of either gender, trans parents, trans kids, kiddos raised by grandparents [like The Kid], blended…
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The Hat of Great Importance: Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody – Patrick Ness. Illustrated by Tim Miller.
Walker Books Australia June 2025 Imprint: Walker Books ISBN13:9781529517965 Australia RRP:$16.99 New Zealand RRP:$18.99 When your copy of The Hat of Great Importance arrives with its own matched hat, it’s a red-letter day indeed! After the first in the series, I was looking forward to the second and another round of monitor angst, humour, diabolical…
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Parrot Palace – Susanne Gervay with Pooja Mathur. Illustrated by Sarah Tabassum.
Big Sky Publishing Imprint: Little Big Sky March 2025 ISBN: 9781923300088 RRP: $12.99 When I had an email from the wonderful Susanne Gervay last year, asking if I would write teaching notes for a new book, quite naturally I was delighted. And when I first read Parrot Palace, I was even more delighted. This is…
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