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Because it’s Book Week…
There are not so many days I miss being full-time in my libraries but, yes, Book Week with the insane preparations and the fun of dressing up [at one of my schools a different costume every day of the week!] has been one in the last couple of years. But honestly, this year I’ve been…
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Lexie Moon & the Space Day Disaster – Melissa Garside and Lauren Mullinder
Riveted Press August 2025 Distributed by Simon & Schuster ISBN13: 9781764007115 RRP: AU$ 12.99 / NZ$ 14.99 I’m quite sure that your young readers, those who are just starting to gobble up chapter books, will have really enjoyed the first Lexie Moon adventure. This is a great series for those kiddos just hitting their straps…
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It’s a Sean E. Avery Special
These two books have been languishing in the PBs’ tubs for way too long. But news of Sean’s recent visit to Canberra [so jelly of all my friends there who got to see him] has guilted me into attending to them pronto. And after all, Sean is a thoroughly nice guy it seems. When I…
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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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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…
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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.…
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Cock-a-doodle-doo! – Pamela Allen
Penguin Australia August 2025 Or as Penguin have titled it on their website: Cock-a-Doodle-Doooo! What a living treasure is Pamela Allen! Now in her 91st year and still giving children such enormous pleasure. This is another of Pamela’s deceptively simple but so cleverly done narratives that will have your Smalls in fits of the giggles…
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Cocka-two!
Synchronicity is an odd thing at times, isn’t it? Just as one of my friends [hello, Sonia!] was telling me about her trials and tribulations with a manic cockatoo since moving into her new house, these two books arrived within a couple of days! We laughed – in that bitterly ironic way that one does…
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The Poisoned King: Impossible Creatures #2 – Katherine Rundell
Bloomsbury ISBN 9781408897454 (p/b) Imprint Bloomsbury Children’s Books RRP: $18.99 (P/b) $29.99 (H/b) $15.19 ebook editions I have raved over Impossible Creatures since I first ate it up greedily and, trust me, I am not the only one. Evidence of that is in the fact that it was the Children’s Book of the Year in…
Just So Stories 
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