Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • You can’t help but notice..

    Sometimes there is a slew of similar looking books, or titles, or even narratives or content. We all know there are trends in fashion, food, music, movies and even books – but it does sometimes seem that at times various authors, even across continents, simultaneously get the same thought. Other times it’s just seems to… Read more

  • Write Now

    As it happens an assortment of books all geared to writing – for kids and for others, so do enjoy! The Story Writer’s Handbook – Katrina Nannestad. Illustrated by Cheryl Orsini. Harper Collins Australia September 2025 It was completely unintentional to leave this one so long but it sifted down between others and so was… Read more

  • Gimme Some Space (Book #2 Marvellous Submarine) – Clayton Zane Comber & Conor McCammon

    Harper Collins Australia Imprint: Angus & Robertson February 2026 ISBN: 9781460766811 RRP: $17.99 Clayton and Conor continue with their new insanely bonkers series, this time blasting off into space in the retro-fitted submarine now doubling as a spaceship. Twins, Billy and Poppy, plus their assorted menagerie (using the term loosely) of helpers determine to track down… Read more

  • The Dust Bowl, 1935: I Survived – Lauren Tarshis

    Scholastic Australia March 2026 ISBN: 9781761728662 RRP: $15.99 My introduction to the work of John Steinbeck was watching the movie adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath aged around 11/12 and thereafter, reading my father’s copy of the book plus all his other Steinbecks, including my all-time favourite book Of Mice and Men, also set in… Read more

  • Don’t Let Them Leave – Mike Lucas

    Penguin Australia May 2026 Eeek! I read this halfway through on a sunny Sunday afternoon – thank goodness, because this is absolute superb, spooky, supernatural Gothic horror at its best. Drawing on Cornish folktales and superstitions and set around the 1930s, readers who love a truly suspenseful, twisty-turning creepy narrative will eat this up with… Read more

  • One Day A True Story of Courage and Survival in the Holocaust – Michael Rosen

    Walker Books February 2025 ISBN13:9781529515985 Australia RRP:$27.99 New Zealand RRP:$29.99 Michael Rosen has long been one of the UK’s most acclaimed authors of children’s books. His range of genres is astonishing from the comic to the serious. And his most serious are those books that pertain to the Holocaust, a subject with which Michael has… Read more

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