Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • Ming & Flo Fight for the Future: (The Girls Who Changed the World #1) – Jackie French

    Harper Collins March 2022 A brand new series from Jackie French is always cause for great excitement, and this one is going to be a corker, given this fabulous start! We have all been awed by Jackie’s wealth of historical novels and her indomitable female characters over the years. Now younger readers have the opportunity…

  • A Whale of the Wild – Rosanne Parry

    Harper Collins Australia January 2022 ISBN: 9780062995933 ISBN 10: 0062995936 Imprint: HarperCollins US RRP: $16.99 This is just a magical read – the lyrical text almost flows like the water Vega and her family inhabit – and was certainly for me last night, a really intriguing but also restful way to read myself ready to sleep. That’s not…

  • Einstein the Penguin – Iona Rangeley. Illustrated y David Tazzyman.

    Harper Collins Australia December 2021 ISBN: 9780008475963 ISBN 10: 0008475962 Imprint: HarperCollins GB List Price: 19.99 AUD This is a fun new read for your kiddos who are moving on from those first easy chapter books to something a little more challenging. Imagine stirring up Paddington stories with Mr Popper’s Penguins with a good dash of Finding Nemo and…

  • Christmas Always Comes – Jackie French/Bruce Whatley

    Harper Collins Australia October 2021 ISBN: 9781460757895 ISBN 10: 1460757890 Imprint: HarperCollins AU List Price: 24.99 AUD Jackie and Bruce are always a formidable team, and their picture books are always memorable and en pointe despite the setting, theme or plot. In this instance, while the narrative reflects a period past – one of many tough times in Australian…

  • Funny Kid Prank Ninjas [Funny Kid #10] – Matt Stanton

    Harper Collins September 2021 ISBN: 9780733340628 ISBN 10: 0733340628 Imprint: ABC Books AU List Price: 14.99 AUD I freely admit it. I’m not a huge fan of the many comic mega-series. They always seem to me to be very formulaic and same-same BUT I never find that in Matt’s books. Each Funny Kid I have read has provided delicious…

  • There’s a Ghost in this House – Oliver Jeffers

    Harper Collins Australia October 2021 ISBN: 9780008298357 ISBN 10: 0008298351 Imprint: HarperCollins GB List Price: 29.99 AUD Without doubt books for young readers which invite the children to become part of the whole experience of text and illustrations are far and away the most popular in any setting, in my experience – just think, Herve Tullet, Beck & Matt…

  • Sofa Surfer – Malcolm Duffy

    Harper Collins Australia May 2021 ISBN: 9781786697684 ISBN 10: 1786697688 Imprint: Head Of Zeus – Zehpyr GB RRP $16.99 On any given night in Australia 116,427 Australians are homeless. 27,680 of these are young people aged 12-24 years. Most of the homeless youth aged 12–18 years in 2016 were living in ‘severely’ crowded dwellings (61%) or in supported accommodation for…

  • Pumpkin – Julie Murphy

    Harper Collins Australia July 2021 ISBN: 9780063134867 ISBN 10: 0063134861 Imprint: HarperCollins US List Price: 19.99 AUD Seriously, you could hardly get a better book to read during (another) lockdown than this deliciously funny and heart-warming companion novel to Dumplin’. I can guarantee your readers will fall in love with Waylon Brewer and the accompanying cast of characters in…

  • The Travelling Bookshop #1: Mim and the Baffling Bully – Katrina Nannestad

    Harper Collins Australia July 2021 ISBN: 9781460713662 ISBN 10: 1460713664 Imprint: ABC Books List Price: 8.99 AUD I absolutely love this return to her whimsical, feel-good style from Katrina Nannestad, in this new and thoroughly delightful series. Although pitched at younger readers, I can absolutely see my older readers, who are keen fans of The Girl, the Dog, the…

  • Night Ride into Danger – Jackie French

    Harper Collins Australia May 2021 ISBN: 9781460758939 ISBN 10: 1460758935 Imprint: HarperCollins AU RRP: $16.99 Again Jackie has crafted a narrative that combines fact and fiction to take readers back in time to colonial Australia where it was commonplace to meet diverse characters and perhaps even more commonplace not to know everything there is to know about those…