Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • In times of bushfires and billy buttons – Steven Herrick

    Ford St Publishing October 2023 ISBN: 9781922696366 RRP: $19.95 Ethan’s early years were not the stuff of idyllic wholesome family stories. When both his parents went to jail for fifteen years, as the result of drug-dealing, it was either foster care as a ward of the state or living with his Aunt Helen in another…

  • A Joyful Life – Rosemary Karinki, with Summer Land

    Hardie Grant March 2023 ISBN:9781741177886 Publisher:Hardie Grant Explore RRP: $34.99 I’ve been reading a lot of kids’ books the past few weeks so to have a couple of bios/memoirs has been good. I’ve had this one sitting to one side (i.e. moving box!) for a few months, it was wonderful to finally get to it…

  • Being Jimmy Baxter – Fiona Lloyd

    Penguin Australia This is often a very funny book. This is often a very moving book. I ate it up in one sitting because Jimmy’s story is one that demands to be read. Jimmy is not so good with school stuff, and he has a kind of innocence in his thinking that completely reminds me…

  • Gus and the Starlight – Victoria Carless

    Harper Collins May 2022 ISBN: 9781460760642 ISBN 10: 1460760646 Imprint: HarperCollins AU List Price: 16.99 AUD This is such a completely fresh take on both family stories and ghost stories. It is charming, poignant and thoroughly engaging for readers from around mid-primary to lower secondary. Gus is tired of moving house and never belonging anywhere. It’s the reason she…

  • Being Britney: Pieces of a Modern Icon – Jennifer Otter Bickerdike

    Allen & Unwin November 2021 ISBN: 9781788705240 Publisher: Bonnier Imprint: Nine Eight Book RRP: $29.99 To be perfectly frank, I cannot say I’ve ever been a super fan of Britney, either as a person or an entertainer. I don’t mean I disliked her or dismissed her but she was just never high in my consciousness…

  • Take Me With You When You Go – David Levithan/Jennifer Niven

    My review of this terrific YA novel is now live on Kids Book Review. I highly recommend this to you – it’s fabulous read!

  • Dragon Skin – Karen Foxlee

    Allen & Unwin September 2021 ISBN:9781760526108 Imprint:A & U Children RRP: $19.99 One wouldn’t normally associate the outback mining town of Mt Isa with magic or dragons but Karen Foxlee’s newest novel for middle school readers makes this eminently plausible. How to save a dragon:1) Assemble equipment. Water, Weet-Bix, sugar, syringe, sticky tape, scissors.2) Believe…

  • The Tell – Martin Chatterton

    Penguin Australia April 2020 ISBN: 9781760895945 Imprint: Puffin RRP: $16.99 OMG whoahhhh! If you struggle at times to get some of those middle school reluctant readers engaged with a great book (who doesn’t?) this is definitely a ‘must have’! Pure adrenalin pumping action from start to finish, this a narrative that is tense, at times grim but with…

  • How To Make Friends with the Dark – Kathleen Glasgow

    Harper Collins Australia April 2020 ISBN: 9781460751060 ISBN 10: 146075106X Imprint: HarperCollins – AU List Price: 19.99 AUD   Here is what happens when your mother dies. My timing for reading this could have been better really. It was the 5th anniversary of losing my girl this past week, a scant fortnight before  Miss K’s 10th birthday. So at…

  • At the End of Holyrood Lane – Dimity Powell/Nicky Johnson

    Harper Collins Australia ISBN: 9781925335767 ISBN 10: 1925335763 Imprint: Exisle Kids Publishing – NZ On Sale: 20/08/2018 List Price: 24.99 AUD   Just before Miss Small (who really is no longer small!) came to live with me, she was absolutely petrified of storms. She would watch the sky anxiously and literally quiver with fear. While I guessed that this was…