Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe


  • The Dust Bowl, 1935: I Survived – Lauren Tarshis

    Scholastic Australia March 2026 ISBN: 9781761728662 RRP: $15.99 My introduction to the work of John Steinbeck was watching the movie adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath aged around 11/12 and thereafter, reading my father’s copy of the book plus all his other Steinbecks, including my all-time favourite book Of Mice and Men, also set in…

  • ANZAC Biscuits (a Commemorative Edition) – Phil Cummings. Owen Swan

    SCHOLASTIC AUSTRALIA March 2026 ISBN: 9781761725302 ISBN-10: 1761725300 Hard to believe it’s 13 years since this lovely book was first published and this is a welcome new edition to replace your original, particularly with this updated and very striking cover [love the touch of gold and the hardcover has the most delightful feel to it, almost like…

  • My Mum’s Amazing! Phil Cummings. Hannah Marks.

    Scholastic Australia March 2026 9781761297380 RRP: $19.99 This is just pure delight from start to finish! Phil Cummings has cracked it again with a lively text that is super engaging, fun to read and so descriptive while, at the same time, encapsulating all those great things we appreciate about our mothers, for Smalls to reflect…

  • I’d Rather Be a Shark – Philip & Laura Bunting

    The Buntings have done it again with an uproariously look at ‘what if…’ when a child is fed up with having to use their manners, or being kind to everyone and taking turns, smiling sweetly and, as for sharing – phooey! What if….one salty kid could transform into a salty, snapping toothy SHARK! That would…

  • Books in Homes

    Yesterday I did my first gig for Books in Homes, which is just such a fantastic initiative to promote a love of books and reading to kiddos. I went to Carole Park SS and while it was a mission to get there, what a delightful little school it is. Their student leaders were fabulous and…

  • I Am Not a Fish – Patrick Guest. Katie Abey.

    Scholastic Australia April 2026 ISBN: 9781761647628 ISBN-10: 1761647628 RRP: $19,99 I have such fond memories of The Second Sky, do you? My kiddos, in our countdown to the Book of the Year awards and our sharing of all the short-listed picture books (Early Childhood category, voted it our readers’ choice winner. So… this is NOTHING like that…

  • Bush Turkey: Easter Hunt – Kate and Jol Temple. Illustrated by Ronojoy Gosh.

    Scholastic Australia February 2026 ISBN: 9781761640124 RRP: $19.99 Like a bush turkey manically constructing his nesting mound to lure all the single ladies, this is rather chaotic and crazy – but then, it is Kate and Jol Temple! When Bush Turkey starts on his nest he kicks up a shiny gold egg that he knows…

  • Axel Scheffler’s Treasury of Fairy Tales

    Scholastic Australia Imprint: Alison Green Books May 2026 ISBN: 9780702333194 ISBN-10: 0702333190 There are some favourites that just get better with age, don’t you agree? And this new hardback edition, beautifully bound with its gorgeous dustjacket [like books of my long-ago youth!] is one of these. As if the charms of Axel’s illustrations are not enough, his…

  • UnBEARable – Kathryn Apel/Beau Wylie

    Scholastic Australia January 2026 We love a fractured fairytale – we do, we do!! By ‘we’ I mean those of us who teach – and regularly teach fairytales. And that’s as much a part of secondary literacy as it is primary-based. Traditional tales – in all their guises: fairytale, folk tale, myths, legends, Dreaming stories…

  • Pocket Bear – Katherine Applegate

    Scholastic Australia February 2026 ISBN: 9781760266622 RRP: $18.99 Like many others I follow Katherine Applegate on her social media, I think probably I started when I first read Ivan. I was tremendously interested as she wrote about this title but didn’t expect to see it unless it came to the library. So I was absolutely…