Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • Aggie Flea is NOT a Liar- Tania Ingram

    Scholastic Australia September 2023 ISBN: 9781760972547 RRP: $16.99 Move over, Barbie – there’s a new girl rocking the pink all over town, and hers is fluoro! Meet Aggie Flea, whom you will immediately fall for,  because she’s inquisitive, imaginative and completely inept in most situations. Really, she’s a bit like Anne of Green Gables in…

  • The First Summer of Callie McGee – A. L. Tait

    Scholastic August 2023 ISBN: 9781760260163ISBN-10: 1760260169  A L Tait makes an impressive departure from her usual historical/fantasywriting, with this thoroughly engaging contemporary middle-grade novel. Calliope-Jean Maree McGee is about to start high school. It’s not the selective high school that her mother wanted her to attend, and that’s just fine by this tween who is keen to…

  • Two Sparrowhawks in a Lonely Sky – Rebecca Lim

    Allen & Unwin August 2023 ISBN: 9781761180224 Publisher: A&U Children’s Imprint: A & U Children RRP: $23.99 Like many others, I have read both fictional and factual accounts of the extreme hardship and brutality of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, an ill-conceived scheme to bring China to an ideal Communist Utopia. It resulted in the…

  • Leaf-Light: a story about caring for each other – Trace Balla

    Allen & Unwin August 2023 ISBN:9781760526207 Publisher:A&U Children’s Imprint:A & U Children RRP: $27.99 We have come to know Trace’s books as eloquent and evocative explorations of important themes, with a deep connection to nature and to country. This new one is, I think, my favourite so far as it narrates the interconnections of a…

  • My Family Kitchen- Tommy Pham

    Penguin Australia July 2023 Ok, I freely admit it. I’m one of those tragics who loves looking at beautiful cookbooks without necessarily making any of the dishes – but there are exceptions to that. This is truly a very beautiful cookbook with loads of colour pages, with, also, full page colour photographs to accompany each…

  • Because of Winn-Dixie – Kate diCamillo

    Walker Books Australia February 2022 ISBN13:9781536214352 Imprint: Candlewick Press Australia RRP:$14.99 New Zealand RRP:$17.99 Awards Alabama Camellia Children’s Choice Book Award Arkansas Charlie May Simon Award Bank Street College Josette Frank Award for Fiction California Young Reader Medal Children’s Librarians of Dover, NH Cochecho Readers’ Award Delaware Library Association Blue Hen Award Florida Sunshine State…

  • Hamlet is Not OK – R. A. Spratt

    Penguin Australia July 2023 No one will be surprised to hear that after reading a couple of chapters before I went to sleep last night, I gobbled the rest up in one sitting today – and loved every single word! It’s not Friday Barnes, nor Nanny Piggins but Spratt’s sass and sarcasm, her unerring sense…

  • The One and Only Ruby – Katherine Applegate

    Harper Collins Australia June 2023 We first fell in love with Ivan and his friends over ten years ago (yes! I know!!), and I still defy anyone to read the gentle gorilla’s story with dry eyes. Then, the amazing Katherine Applegate followed up with The One and Only Bob, and again we were both amused…

  • The Secret History of the Rainbow Trout Hotel – David Metzenthen

    Ford St Publishing June 2023 ISBN: 9781922696274 RRP: $19.99 Andy Lightfoot’s gap year takes him deep into the past – at the oldand weirdly wonderful Rainbow Trout Private Hotel. Here, high in themountains, Andy discovers working for nothing gives him everything. . . and that the middle of nowhere is the centre of an amazinguniverse,…

  • Huda was Here – H. Hayek

    Allen & Unwin ISBN:9781761068430 Imprint:A & U Children RRP: $15.99 This is a really fun read but more than that, it’s a delightful look at family relationships and community interactions. When their dad loses his job as the neighbourhood security guard, Huda and Akeal set out on a campaign of mischief, with the goal of…