Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile: the junior novelization – Bernard Waber

    Harper Collins Australia September 2022 SBN: 9780063256477 ISBN 10: 0063256479 Imprint: Clarion Books List Price: 12.99 AUD To be perfectly honest, until the trailers for the movie came out, I had never really heard of this series, although I think I’ve had at least one of the picture books (the original one?) in my collection at some point. Maybe…

  • Friday Barnes 11: Last Chance – R. A. Spratt

    Penguin Australia Published: 31 January 2023 ISBN: 9780143779247 Imprint: Puffin RRP: $16.99 Oh Friday, you just get betterer and betterer! Readers will remember my anecdote of the dismay felt by my coterie of Friday fans, when the ‘last’ in the (original) series was announced, and was confirmed by my (then) recent conversation with Rachel over afternoon tea. Subsequently –…

  • Lockwood & Co – Jonathan Stroud

    Penguin Australia 7 February 2023 ISBN: 9780241613122 Imprint: Penguin RRP: $18.99 Ten years ago I reviewed The Screaming Staircase and wrote: This new series from Jonathan Stroud is the first since the Bartimaeus Sequence which sold over six million copies, and was translated in over 35 languages. The fact that Universal Studios has already picked up the film…

  • Meerkat Christmas – Aura Parker

    Penguin Australia October 2022 ISBN: 9780143777229 Imprint: Puffin RRP: $19.99 Seriously, I’m always so in awe of creators who can do both the text and the illustrations – for someone who yearns to have even a smidgin of creativity it seems a little unfair -haha! This is another title I shared with numerous classes over the closing weeks…

  • The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents[ film tie-in edition] – Terry Pratchett

    Penguin Australia November 2022 ISBN: 9780552578929 Imprint: Corgi Childrens RRP: $16.99 Twenty years ago the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett won the Carnegie Medal for his 28th book in the Discworld series, the first written for children, so it is utterly fitting that finally this extraordinary, absurd fantasy should be brought to life – and brought to a…

  • Diary of a Rescued Wombat – Jackie French/Bruce Whatley

    Harper Collins November 2022 ISBN: 9781460761823 ISBN 10: 1460761820 Imprint: HarperCollins AU List Price: 24.99 AUD Twenty years ago Jackie French and Bruce Whatley collaborated on what was to be the first of ‘the Wombat’ books, and you might say, the rest is history! To celebrate this milestone, this is an absolutely not-to-be-missed prequel to the entire series with…

  • You Can’t Let an Elephant Drive a Racing Car – Patricia Cleveland-Peck and DavidTazzyman

    Bloomsbury Publishing August 2022 ISBN 9781526635402 Imprint Bloomsbury Children’s Books RRP: $14.99 We all know that kiddos love absurd humour and this book fits that bill to a T. I shared this one with a Prep class who were all pretty much shrieking with laughter all the way through it. This is a hilarious look…

  • Rodney Forgets It – Michael Gerard Bauer

    Scholastic Australia July 2022 ISBN : 9781761121388 RRP: $19.99 In 2018 my kiddos, in our usual countdown to Book Week reading all the short-listed PBs, voted Rodney Loses It our winner – oddly enough, the judges agreed with us (rarely happens, in my experience!). Now Rodney is back in another hilarious but heart-warming tail –…

  • Astonishingly Good Stories – R. A. Spratt

    Penguin Australia August 2022 ISBN: 9780143779261 Imprint: Puffin RRP: $19.99 Now with a day off at my disposal, due to having no voice left with which to teach, I am trying to catch up with reviews, and really it is dead lucky I had already read this latest volume, because there is no doubt that strenuous laughing of…

  • The Book of Wondrous Possibilities – Deborah Abela

    Penguin Australia 2 August 2022 ISBN: 9781761044021 Imprint: Puffin RRP: $16.99 From the opening paragraph this brilliant book simply sparkles with magic and adventure – unsurprisingly, for those of us who have followed Deborah Abela’s writing career for years! My first encounter with this joyful creator was when, as the organiser of an extravaganza showcase at Marrickville Library,…