Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • Digby & Claude – Emma Allen & Hannah Sommerville

    Publisher:   National Library of Australia Edition:   1st Edition ISBN:   9780642279279 Publication Date:   01 August 2018 RRP $24.99 When Emma Allen read an old newspaper article about ‘family friendly’ flats being built in Erskineville back in the 1930s she was inspired to create a picture book which reflected not only a child’s appreciation of their own place…

  • Barney and the Secret of the French Spies – Jackie French

    Harper Collins Australia ISBN: 9781460751305 ISBN 10: 1460751302 On Sale: 22/01/2018 List Price: 14.99 AUD Another gripping episode in the story of Barney and Elsie, providing readers with more insight into the early days of the European colony in Sydney and NSW and I’m so excited that next term I’m using Birrung the Secret Friend with my Year 4s…

  • Sweet Adversity – Sheryl Gwyther

       TBC Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd ISBN: 9781460755105 ISBN-10: 1460755103 RRP : $17.99   In her new historical novel Sheryl Gwyther takes  readers on a dramatic, sometimes tense and often poignant adventure to a grim time in Australia’s past – the Great Depression. While the Wall St collapse impacted all around the world, Australia suffered terribly…

  • Marvellous Miss May: Queen of the Circus – Stephanie Owen Reeder

      Publisher:   National Library of Australia Edition:   1st Edition ISBN:   9780642279156 Publication Date:   01 February 2018 RRP $24.99 What is not to love about this wonderful Heritage Heroes series?  Stephanie Owen Reeder introduces readers to a cast of significant Australians with whom many of us are unaware (myself included). This new volume continues the high standard…

  • Amazing Australians in Their Flying Machines

    By Prue Mason and Kerry Mason Illustrated by Tom Jellett ISBN: 9781922244635 Imprint: Walker Books Australia April 1, 2017 Australian RRP: $24.99 Daughter of an RAF Lancaster WO/AG and with a dear friend who was a Squadron Leader, then a commercial pilot (RIP Dad and Wal), you might think I’d be across most of Australia’s aviation history.  Instead, I find that…

  • Australia Illustrated – Tania McCartney

    Exisle Publishing November 2016 ISBN 9781925335217 RRP $29.99   Five years ago while the teacher-librarian at Red Hill Primary, Canberra, I invited a local author about whom I had heard good things to come on an author visit to talk about her popular ‘Riley’ picture books.  Elegant Tania McCartney walked into my library and we…

  • On the River – Roland Harvey

    Allen & Unwin ISBN: 9781760112455 Imprint: A & U Children  July 2016 RRP $24.99   “The book is about the Murray River, from top to bottom. The system is vitally important to graziers, food growers, communities for drinking and domestic use, for irrigation, for hydro power, for recreation and for the health of the environment…

  • The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill

    The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill The Australian behind the legendary stories The Dam Busters, The Great Escape and Reach for the Sky By Stephen Dando-Collins Penguin Random House ISBN 9780857988126 August 29, 2016 Imprint : Vintage Australia RRP: $34.99   As the daughter of a Lancaster wireless operator/air gunner growing up in the…

  • Yong : the journey of an unworthy son – Janeen Brian

    ISBN: 9781925126297 Imprint: WALKER BOOKS AUST Distributor: Harper Collins Distribution Services for Australia and New Zealand August 1, 2016 RRP $16.99 There have been many accounts of the Chinese coming to Australia in the gold rush era both for adults and children but this is the first I have read which explores the history of some of these…

  • The Lost Sapphire – Belinda Murrell

    ISBN: 9781925324112 Published: 16/05/2016 Imprint: Random House Australia Children’s RRP $17.99 Once again Belinda Murrell has set her readers’ feet upon a path to the past with an ease that is breathtaking. When Marli’s mother has to go overseas for work for several months, the teenager is sent to stay with her estranged father in Melbourne, doing so…