Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • The Build-Up Season – Megan Jacobson

    Penguin Random House 9780143573388 July 31, 2017 Penguin (AU YR)   RRP $19.99 What a fantastic and gripping read this is! This one had to be read over two nights but it was a wrench to leave it halfway! Ily (Iliad) Piper is a young woman who has had to face many emotional upheavals in…

  • The Traitor and the Thief – Gareth Ward

    Walker Books Australia July 2017 ISBN 9781925381504 RRP $17.99 I will confess I’m not a real steampunk aficionado (His Dark Materials excepted!) but this is a complex and interesting narrative. It’s difficult to determine an actual setting either time or place except that it is in England, opening in London, and post ‘Tedwardian’ apparently.  Proper…

  • Letters to the Lost – Brigid Kemmerer

    Allen & Unwin ISBN:9781408883525 Publisher: Bloomsbury UK Imprint :Bloomsbury Child March 2017 RRP $16.99 Juliet’s mother died in a terrible hit-and-run accident. On her way home from yet another international photography mission documenting the heartbreak of war zones and disasters, she returned early at Juliet’s request and on her way from the airport was suddenly…

  • The Moonlight Dreamers – Siobhan Curham

    ISBN: 9781406365825 Imprint: WALKER PAPERBACK Distributor: Harper Collins Distribution Services for Australia and New Zealand Release Date: July 1, 2016 Australian RRP: $16.99 New Zealand RRP: $18.99   Four teenage girls couldn’t be more different in personality, home life, culture or beliefs; yet one thing brings them together. They are all fed up with other people, whether peers or adults, telling…

  • Mrs Whitlam – Bruce Pascoe

    Magabala Books Author: Bruce Pascoe Published: Jun 2016 ISBN: 9781925360240 Ages: Middle primary, Upper primary, Young Adult   I am very quickly becoming very enamoured of Bruce Pascoe’s writing for young people (not to mention for adults). He is really deft at making his young adult characters believable and contemporary without relying on current vernacular…

  • Zeroes – Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti

        ISBN:97819252665 Publisher:Allen & Unwin Imprint:A & U Children Pub Date:October 2015 Page Extent:496 RRP $19.99   When three highly respected authors collaborate on a novel, you might expect something extraordinary and Zeroes delivers just that. This is a slam-dunk in-your-face novel that brings something quite out of the box to readers. Meet six…

  • Be Frank With Me – Julia Claiborne Johnson

    Allen & Unwin Australia ISBN:9781782399179 Publisher:Atlantic Imprint:Corvus Pub Date:February 2016 RRP $27.99 As  you know, I don’t seem to get around to reading grown up books often but there was something about the blurb for this one that begged me to read and review it. Thank you thank you A&U for allowing me the unmitigated…

  • The Singing Bones – Shaun Tan

    Allen & Unwin Imprint; Allen & Unwin Children October 2015 ISBN 9781760111038 RRP $35.00 Along with many others a new work from Shaun Tan sends a frisson of expectation and the promise of delighted awe through me and The Singing Bones is no disappointment. From the first ‘picking up’, feeling the sleekness of the stylish…

  • 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…