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Our History: A House Divided – Clare Hallifax
Walker Books Australia August 2025 ISBN13:9781760658991 Australia RRP:$16.99 New Zealand RRP:$18.99 What a terrific book to pair with your upper primary studies on our goverment systems, not to mention your Civics and Citizenship units for secondary students. In the mid-70s I hadn’t yet experienced living in Canberra, and was yet to discover its unique character,…
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Normal Women Making History for 900 years – Philippa Gregory
Illustrations by Alexis Snell Red Shed March 2025ISBN: 9780008725075 I am quite familiar with Philippa Gregory’s writing. Those books I have read are marvellous examples of historical fiction with such elegant blending of fact and fiction. But the title of this intrigued me as soon as I saw it. I had, in fact, no idea…
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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,…
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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…
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The Remembered Soldier
Anjet Daanje (trans. David McKay) Scribe Publications June 2025 ISBN (13):9781761380136 RRP:$37.99 Ok, so I haven’t actually read this one yet but putting in the deets for you all to finish off this week of tributes for the 80th Anniversary. This is a mammoth book – almost 600 pages – and I just haven’t had…
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The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: Lynne Olsen
How an intrepid band of Frenchwomen resisted the Nazis in Hitler’s all-female concentration camp Scribe Publications July 2025 ISBN (13):9781761381461 RRP:$36.99 My confession here is that I’ve had this for ages, well and truly long before its release date, and it’s been on my bedside table as I dip in and out of it, book-cheating…
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Yoko’s Diary – by Paul Ham. Translated by Debbie Edwards.
Harper Collins Australia July 2025 SHORTLISTED in the 2014 CBCA Awards SHORTLISTED in the 2014 NSW Premier’s History Awards I’m embarrassed to say that though I’ve had this book in every single one of my primary libraries, as far as I can recall, I had never read it. But it is a welcome new edition…
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Anna’s War – DJ Taylor
Riveted Press Simon & Schuster July 2025 Aside from, of course, Anne Frank’s diary I knew very little about life for the Dutch during the war. I did glean some from Tulips for Breakfast when I read and reviewed it. But this astonishing debut novel from DJ Taylor has certainly opened my eyes to even…
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The Year We Escaped – Suzanne Leal
Harper Collins Australia June 2025 Suzanne Leal’s Running with Ivan was a book that took me to a very different part of the Second World War, and it was a privilege to write the teaching notes for it. I was lucky enough to be asked to write them for this new book as well. And…
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Back to Business!! – 2025: 80th Anniversary of the end of World War II
Thanks for your hanging in there while I took a little break. I got four readers drafted for the American publisher – let’s see how much editing will ensue! And I’ve picked up three new commissions for teaching notes in the space of two days (!!): one direct from one of our leading authors, and…
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