Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • Zafir [Through My Eyes] – Prue Mason

    ISBN: 9781743312544 Australian Pub.: February 2015 Publisher: Allen & Unwin Imprint: A & U Children Subject: Children’s fiction Suitable for ages: 11-14 RRP $15.99 A carefree happy boy in Syria, on the cusp of becoming a young man, finds himself and his family caught up in the tragedy of Syria’s civil war. Prue Mason has lived…

  • Five Children on the Western Front – Kate Saunders

    Allen & Unwin Australia ISBN: 9780571310951 Australian Pub.: November 2014 Publisher: Faber Imprint: Faber Child Trade Subject: Children’s fiction Suitable for ages: 9-12 If you, like me, love E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It stories, then this new book will thoroughly delight you. Time has passed and the children are grown up – well the…

  • The Beastly Pirates – John Kelly

    Allen & Unwin Australia Bloomsbury Children Imprint February 2015 ISBN 9781408849859 RRP $14.99 Shiver the timbers of your younger readers with this wonderfully witty and rollicking rhyming story about the scurviest pirates you’ve ever encountered! This just begs to be read aloud with lots and lots of vocal expression. It is chockful of onomatopoeia and…

  • Stormy Night – Salina Yoon

    Allen & Unwin Australia Bloomsbury February 2015-01-25 RRP $15.99 There is a little person here who has had a great deal of anxiety about storms, since a very severe one a couple of months particularly.  This fear has been diminishing with some careful support but this wonderful book could not have been timelier or better…

  • House of Robots #1- James Patterson

    Random House Australia ISBN: 9780099568278 Published: 01/12/2014 Imprint: Arrow (Young) Extent: 352 pages RRP $15.99 There is no doubt that James Patterson must rank as one of the most highly successful authors of our times. His adult novels have always attracted huge readership and now he is simply tearing away with his books for children. I’ve now been lucky…

  • I Was Here – Gayle Forman

    Simon & Schuster 288 pages | ISBN 9781471124396 | February 2015 List Price AU$ 19.99 NZ$ 21.99 Many of you will already be familiar with Gayle Forman’s If I Stay – either the book or the blockbuster movie, or indeed her other work. Having been pretty much focused on YA for boys for the past…

  • Noggin – John Corey Whaley

    Simon & Schuster UK 352 pages | ISBN 9781471122897 | August 2014 | Grades 9 and up List Price AU$ 14.99 NZ$ 16.99 Listen – Travis Coates was alive once and then he wasn’t.  Now he’s alive again.  Simple as that … I’ve read some unusual YA books in the past year or so, but…

  • Jamie Brown is NOT rich – Adam Wallace

    Ford St Publishing ISBN: 9781925000368 Publication date: May 1, 2014 Extent: 186 pages Format: B format paperback Price: $17.95 Category: Humour Age guide: 6 – 10 Kids who love humorous books of the ilk – Diary of a Wimpy Kid, My Life….(Tristan Bancks), Tom Gates and so on –  will love meeting Jamie Brown and…

  • The Farmer and the Clown – Marla Frazee

    RRP AU$ 19.99 NZ$ 21.99 Every now and then a book comes along which just literally blows one away. This one came along accompanied by some hype which I tried not to let impair my judgement but turns out the hype is well-deserved. There is something completely magical about wordless books which really just tell…

  • The Wild One – Sonya Hartnett/Lucia Masciullo

    Published:24/09/2014 Format:Hardback, 32 pages RRP:$24.99 price:AUD $24.99 ISBN-13:9780670076970 ISBN-10:067007697X Origin:Australia Publisher:Penguin Aus. Imprint:Viking This is a seemingly simple story of the passage of time for one young boy who meets the ‘wild one’ as a child. Yet there is much more than the thread of the cycle of life to this book. Charlie and the…