Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe


  • The Ickabog: The bestselling fairytale, now illustrated by Ben Mantle – J. K. Rowling

    Hachette Australia Imprint: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Sep 2025 | 9781510202795 | RRP $22.99 Remember when The Ickabog first came out during the gloom of covid days and all of us HP fans were SO excited! My kiddos were so hyper that I never got my hands on it to read it – though I did admire…

  • Gloam – Jack MacKay

    Bloomsbury September 2025 Imprint: Oneworld ISBN: 9780861549528 RRP: $16.99 Sometimes a debut novel comes along that completely blows you away, and this would be one of those. I’m not a fan of horror, but I don’t mind a bit of creepy – this was actually quite a lot of creepy! and an enormously good read.…

  • The Terrakeet – Jo Van Der Borgh. Illustrated by Jo Beasley.

    Walker Books Australia April 2025 ISBN13:9781760657673 Australia RRP:$25.99 New Zealand RRP:$27.99 In the shade of the gobi trees on the edge of Pincer Sea,live a family of Finlocks as peaceful as can be.They lomf and fish and fish and eat and hope that they will never meet …the Frimbulitic Terrakeet! From narrative-nonfiction to classics to humour…

  • Cock-a-doodle-doo! – Pamela Allen

    Penguin Australia August 2025 Or as Penguin have titled it on their website: Cock-a-Doodle-Doooo! What a living treasure is Pamela Allen! Now in her 91st year and still giving children such enormous pleasure. This is another of Pamela’s deceptively simple but so cleverly done narratives that will have your Smalls in fits of the giggles…

  • Spooky Season from Five Mile

    Five Mile October 2024 Tilly’s New Broom – Mary Anastasiou/Giorgia Clerico 9781923091542 RRP: $24.99 I think we’ve all been there. When you need a new ride but nothing seems to be right [thank goodness for my friend who was selling Black Betty just in time for me to hand-me-down Scarlett O’Cara to The Kid a…

  • School of Monsters series- Sally Rippin. Art by Chris Kennet.

    Hardie Grant Children’s October 2024 Leggy Peggy ISBN: 9781761213496 RRP: $10.99 Super-fast Skelly October 2024 ISBN: 9781761213489 RRP: $10.99 Fairly recently I had the pleasure of sharing an online discussion with our Laureate, Sally Rippin (thanks to YKR) in which much of her content was focused on the need for us all to support those…

  • Pirates of Darksea – Catherine Doyle

    Bloomsbury Australia June 2024 ISBN 9781526655103 Imprint Bloomsbury Children’s Books RRP: $16.99 I fell in love with Catherine Doyle’s writing with The Stormkeeper trilogy and when the ARC arrived for this – many months ago- I devoured it with just as much enthusiasm – and this review has been scheduled since then!! This is an…

  • The Bother with the Bonkillyknock Beast: Miss Mary-Kate Martin’s Guide to Monsters #3 – Karen Foxlee. Illustrated by Freda Chiu.

    Allen & Unwin January 2024 ISBN:9781761470226 RRP: $15.99 Imprint:A & U Children Awards: For one reason or another, I had not yet been introduced to Mary-Kate but that really didn’t preclude any enjoyment of this fun adventure. She comes from a long line of monster hunters – not the kind that want to get rid…

  • Mermedusa – Thomas Taylor

    Walker Books Book 5 of An Eerie-on-Sea Mystery Series September 2023 ISBN13: 9781529502138 Australia RRP: $17.99 New Zealand RRP: $19.99 When you’ve loved every minute of a series, it’s hard to say goodbye to it. So it is that in reading this fifth and final in the wonderful Eerie-on-Sea sequence, I tried hard to make it…

  • The Boy Who Hatched Monsters- T. C. Shelley

    Bloomsbury Publishing March 2022 ISBN 9781526600790 Imprint Bloomsbury Children’s Books RRP: $14.99 Sam, half monster/half fairy, has not only that secret to keep but many others. For example, there’s the one about his pack – the gargoyles who protect him, and the one about his school friends, the shape shifters who can change into dogs…