Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • Artie and the Grime Wave – Written and illustrated by Richard Roxburgh

    ISBN: 9781760292140 Publisher: Allen & Unwin Imprint: A & U Children October 2016 RRP $16.99 Ok so Richard Roxburgh is a talented actor and director in both theatre and screen and of course the star of Rake. Now he’s added writing and illustrating to his portfolio in a very successful way. I mean to say,…

  • Crazy Characters & Daft Deeds

      I’ve chosen to review these two books on the same post as to me they are similar in many ways all of which will appeal to their audience.  Both Colin Thompson and A.F. Harrold have a singular and individualised way of providing satirical humour for a pint-sized readership. They also both employ that  every…

  • Q&A with Michael Wagner!!

    Hi Michael and welcome to Just So Stories! Let’s jump right in here and start with So Wrong! You mentioned that as reluctant readers as kids you and Wayne Bright, your illustrator, wanted to create a book that would entice children to read. Tell us about its inception and inspiration please. So Wrong started with…

  • The Famishing Vanishing Mahoosive Mammoth – Hollie Hughes/Leigh Hodgkinson

    Allen & Unwin Australia ISBN: 9781408862780 Publisher: Bloomsbury Imprint: Bloomsbury Child Pub Date: August 2016 RRP $14.99 This hilarious rhyming book is just pure good fun for little readers. The huge hairy mammoth has a ‘ridiculously large appetite’ and his great friend the Bug is beginning to despair of ever finding the snack that will…

  • The Great Dragon Bake Off – Nicola O’Byrne

    Allen & Unwin Australia ISBN: 9781408839560 Publisher :Bloomsbury Imprint: Bloomsbury Child Pub Date: August 2016 RRP $14.99   With the surfeit of cookery shows most children will have seen at least part of one if not actually The Great British Bake Off. And they may well also be familiar with Jamie Oliver. Now they can…

  • Archie Green and the Alchemist’s Curse – D. D. Everest

    Allen & Unwin Australia ISBN: 9780571307418 Publisher: Faber Imprint: Faber Children Pb Pub Date: August 2016 $14.99   Move over Harry, you have a rival for my affections! Somehow or other I missed the first book in this fabulous series (that will need to be redressed ASAP) but no matter, I was able to pick…

  • Mr Chicken Arriva a Roma – Leigh Hobbs

    ISBN: 9781925266771 Publisher: Allen & Unwin Imprint: A & U Children  September 2016 $24.99   Ben venuto caro Signore Pollo! Mi sei mancato! Everyone’s favourite fowl, renowned for his international travel, is back to give us true insight into another marvellous metropolis. Mr Chicken has graced both Paris and London and shown us all their…

  • Friday Barnes #5 The Plot Thickens – R. A. Spratt

    9780857989932 August 1, 2016 Random House Australia Children’s   RRP $15.99 I have some readers who have been driving us mad in the library waiting and waiting on a new Friday Barnes fix – and here it is! Friday’s at her best solving mysteries, uncovering truth, being a complete dork and antagonising people in this…

  • The Adventures of Alfie Onion – Vivian French: illustrated by Matra Kissi

          Walker Books   Imprint: WALKER PAPERBACK   ISBN: 9781406363104 Published: 05 May 2016 Price: $14.99   Fractured fairytales are a popular writing task in many schools. In the past week the secondary girls in my ‘home’ school are writing them and in one of the local primaries in which I did a supply…

  • Amped! Carving it up with DC Green – a blog Q&A that’s choka!

    Ohmigosh! Q&A with the wonderful DC Green – grommet, writer, entertainer, cat-herder, friend, guy with panache…………..and all round Good Guy. Tell us about the young DC – what were you like as a kid, what did you like doing, where you grew up, how naughty you were? Young DC would be devastated to learn that…