Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • The Little Grey Girl (The Wild Magic trilogy #2) – Celine Kiernan.

    Walker Australia ISBN: 9781406373929 Imprint: Walker February 1, 2019 Australian RRP: $16.99 New Zealand RRP: $18.99 I absolutely loved Begone the Raggedy Witches which was the first in this trilogy so was pretty chuffed when this second instalment arrived. The Queen and her raggedy witches have been routed and Mup’s Ma is the new queen having taken her rightful…

  • Catch a Falling Star – Meg McKinlay

    Walker Books March 2019 ISBN: 9781925381207 Imprint: Walker Books Australia Australian RRP: $17.99 New Zealand RRP: $19.99 It’s 1979 and Frankie is just finishing primary school. Her dad has been dead, after a light plane crash over the ocean, for six years  and Frankie, her little brother Newt and her mum have been struggling along ever since. With their…

  • The Quiet at the End of the World – Lauren James

    Walker Books ISBN: 9781406375510 Imprint: Walker March 2019 Australian RRP: $16.99 New Zealand RRP: $18.99 To be honest, I’m totally not a sci-fi person but this novel had me completely engrossed from the first page. London: 2109. Population: 300. Sixteen year old Lowrie and seventeen year old Shen are the only remaining ‘children’ on Earth after a mystery virus,…

  • Kensy and Max #3: Undercover – Jacqueline Harvey

    Penguin Random House 9780143791904 March 5, 2019 Random House Australia Children’s   $16.99 Jacqueline Harvey has done it again with another super episode in her cracking new series about the two intrepid twins, Kensington and Maxim aka Kensy and Max.  The children’s parents are still MiA but news of them is filtering through and they…

  • A Great Escape – Felice Arena

    Penguin Random House 9780143794042 March 2019 Puffin $16.99 I have never been a student of post-war modern history so my knowledge of the Cold War has always been minimal – sketchy even – but, as serendipity would have it, not one but two of my most recent audio ‘reads’ on my daily commute have referenced…

  • 52 Mondays – Anna Ciddor

      Allen & Unwin ISBN: 9781760523480 Imprint: A & U Children Pub Date: March 2019 RRP $14.99   It would appear that Anna Ciddor and I must be of the same vintage as this fictionalised account of a year of her childhood and the many references to commonplace 60s objects and events resonate so readily.…

  • The Girl, the Dog and the Writer in Provence (The Girl, the Dog and the Writer, Book 2) – Katrina Nannestad

    Harper Collins Australia ISBN: 9780733338182 ISBN 10: 0733338186 Imprint: ABC Books – AU October 2018 RRP: 16.99 AUD Young Freja, sensitive and intelligent, along with the hairy hound Finnegan and eccentric crime writer Tobby have left Rome to go to the picturesque village of Claviers in Provence, where it just happens their beautiful friend Vivi has also moved to…

  • The Gum Family Finds a Home – Tania McCartney/Christina Booth

    Publisher:   National Library of Australia Edition:   1st Edition ISBN:   9780642279255 Publication Date:   01 August 2018   Tania McCartney is not only one of my very favourite author/illustrators but also one of my favourite humans. This impossibly talented woman is clever, stylish, generous, beautiful inside and out and passionate about our unique country. It took a while…

  • Bring on the Empty Horses, so the old saying goes…….

    …though these are far from ’empty………..   As my village knows Miss Small has now been riding for about 18 months and is about to compete in her second show tomorrow (last show she got a first in her class of Beginner Rider!) so despite a lifetime in almost total ignorance of riding, except for…

  • The Dollmaker of Krakow – R. M. Romero

      Penguin Random House Sep  2017 | 336 Pages | Middle Grade (8-12) ISBN: 9781406375633 ISBN-10: 1406375632 RRP $24.99  There is war. There is pain. But there is magic and there is hope. I’ve read many books both fictional and non-fiction concerning World War II and particularly the horror of the Holocaust but never have I read one that…