Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • The Locked Room – Adam Cece

    Penguin Australia August 2025 Wowzers! Hold on to your hats, and make sure to get yourself sorted with snacks and drinks for this one because you are not going to want to stop reading it once you’ve started. Let’s say you take a really tricky escape room, mix it up with an ever-evolving game with…

  • The Silken Thread – Gabrielle Wang

    Penguin Australia July 2025 This beautiful new novel from former Laureaute and multi-award winner, Gabrielle Wang, is an absolutely outstanding, and almost mystical, exploration of East meets West. It is not a time-slip but rather a shift in the universe, from Chongming Island in China to Melbourne, Australia, with two very different young people crossing…

  • 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…

  • Board books for Smalls

    Little Miss Daisy is just about too big now for board books, but I’m so happy to be able to share these ones with her before that cut-off! Wibble, Wobble, Walk! – Mike Dumbleton & Sarah Boese Little Book Press Distributed by Simon & Schuster June 2025 ISBN: 9781923141285 RRP: $AU$ 14.99 / NZ$ 29.99…

  • A Different Kind of Power: a memoir – Jacinda Ardern

    Penguin Australia First up, I’m going to say a big thank you to Penguin, especially the indefatigable Dot Tonkin, for giving me the opportunity to read and review this. As someone who admired this young woman as a trailblazer, it has been interesting to see her in close-up, so to speak. I think for many…

  • Eleanor Jones is Playing with Fire – Amy Doak

    Penguin Australia July 2025 Anyone who has read the first two Eleanor Jones books will know exactly how pleased I was when this one arrived. You would also know exactly why the first two titles have been so highly acclaimed. Amy Doak has a great grip on the whole YA crime/mystery genre with characters which…

  • In Plain Sight: Friday Barnes #13 – R. A. Spratt

    Penguin Australia It was quite synchronistic to get #13 Friday Barnes arriving on Friday 13th, I thought! And, needless to say, I promptly gobbled it up over two nights with much snickering and snort laughing [No R. A. Spratt is ever read without the snaughling!]. The Friday romp continues with our intrepid but ‘special’ detective,…

  • Alexander’s Outing – Pamela Allen

    Penguin Australia Who hasn’t shared the love with Alexander at some point, (or many even!) over the past 30 – THIRTY!! – years? And for those of us who are Sydney girls, it has always had a special place in our reading canon. My last outing with Alexander was about a year ago with a…

  • Koala Koala – John Williamson. Illustrated by Jonathan Bentley.

    Penguin Australia April 2025 Koala, Koala – we love youSo soft in the fork of your tree . . .Koala, Koala – where will you goIf we take your gum trees away? I’ve mentioned my association with John along with koalas previously on this blog. While my fond memory is about Goodbye Blinky Bill, Koala…

  • Goodnight Glow Worms – Aura Parker

    Penguin Australia May 2025 The adorable glow worms, such a huge hit on their first appearance (2020), are now in a sweet board book format for your Smallest bugs in rugs. Goodnight, Glow Worms shining bright,Time to dim your Glow Worm light.Glow Worms gleaming, beaming round,Can’t switch off and can’t wind down. The delightful rhyming…