Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • Dung Beetle on a Roll – Sandra Severgnini

    August 2024 | $ 24.99ISBN: 9781486318872 Publisher: CSIRO Publishing You only need to take one look at this adorable vid clip to know that both you and your kids will fall in love with Dung Beetle. Sometimes I’m a bit spoilt and was about a month ago, meeting Sandra for the first time. I was…

  • Imagine a Time -Penny Harrison. Jennifer Goldsmith

    New Frontier June 2024 ISBN: 9781922326966 RRP: AU $26.99/ NZD$32.99 New South Books Imagine a time when all the world stops, when all of the clocks no longer tick-tock. and all of the maps are starting to fade, as the need to be somewhere drifts far away. What an absolutely beautiful book this is! The lyrical…

  • The Beehive – Megan Daley/Max Hamilton

    Walker Books Australia February 2024 ISBN13:9781760655228 Australia RRP:$26.99 New Zealand RRP:$28.99 Given it’s World Bee Day, it seems the right time to finally get to this one. I’m happy to say that Megan Daley and I go back quite a long way, and though we don’t often physically cross paths, we have some shared experiences…

  • Magic Counting – Nabeel Khan. Illustrated by Tete Garcia

    Scribble Kids Books June 2024ISBN: 9781922585400 RRP: $24.99 I am no big fan of maths but there are some aspects that I just love, and one of those is connections, just like the ones made in this book, between numbers, shapes and geometry. Although the suggested age group is 3-7, astute educators will recognise the…

  • Cheer Up, Blobfish! – Julie Murphy. Illustrated by Rachel Tribout.

    Affirm Press April 2024 AUD RRP $19.99 ISBN 9781922863966 Check out the adorable cover on this gem!! The Kid and I have long had a soft spot [so to speak] for blobfish, going way back to her days as mini-Attenborough, so this book was always on my radar. And really, who could go past that…

  • In My Garden – Kate Mayes. Tamsin Ainslie

    ….a children’s picture book about belonging Harper Collins Australia August 2023 It was easy to fall in love with this beautiful book when I only had the galley proofs to look at. Now that I see it in its final form, I find it even more enchanting. It really is a work of art, which…

  • Mother Earth: Poems to celebrate the wonder of nature – Libby Hathorn. Illustrated by Christina Booth.

    Hachette June 2023 9780734421555 | RRP $24.99 |Lothian Children’s Books Synchronicity is often amazing. Earlier this week a colleague was asking for suggestions for poetry for little people, and after much discussion and ideas, I picked this up from my bulging review shelves, and thought- PERFECT! Because the poems contained within are of a wide variety of…

  • The Lucky Shack – Apsara Baldovino/Jennifer Falkner

    Harper Collins July 2023 This is essentially a simple story but there is a depth to it that many will find both heart-warming and thought-provoking. Written from the PoV of the shack (being a great introduction to the idea of personification), this humble little dwelling goes through changes wrought by time and circumstances, and through…

  • The Black Cockatoo with One Feather Blue – Jodie McLeod/Eloise Short

    On KBR today Confidence can be a frail commodity for many of us, but, perhaps, particularly for little people. And, as a result, it is easy to imbue a particular object with special qualities that make us feel braver, stronger and smarter – whether professional golfer with a lucky tee or a toddler with a…

  • Downtown Sewertown – Tull Suwannakit

    Ford St Publishing March 2023 ISBN: 978192296250 RRP: $17.99 What to do when your home is destroyed? There is nothing, except to take what belongings you can,and try to find a new place to live. The woodland creatures are forced to flee when their homes and woods are flattened for new urban housing. They try…