Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe


  • The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: Lynne Olsen

    How an intrepid band of Frenchwomen resisted the Nazis in Hitler’s all-female concentration camp Scribe Publications July 2025 ISBN (13):9781761381461 RRP:$36.99 My confession here is that I’ve had this for ages, well and truly long before its release date, and it’s been on my bedside table as I dip in and out of it, book-cheating…

  • Ask Aunty: Bush Survival Skills – Aunty Munya Andrews. Illustrated by Charmaine Ledden-Lewis

    Hardie Grant December 2024 Imprint: Hardie Grant Explore ISBN:9781741179231 Price:AU$24.99, NZ$27.99 Look out for this stunning new book heading your way in the next week or so. As part of the Ask Aunty series, this title will share an understanding of Country, and its integral role in the lives of First Nations People, and how…

  • Courage be my Friend: the Vivian Bullwinkel Story – Jenny Davis

    Fremantle Press April 2024 ISBN: 9781760993726 RRP: $17.99 It would be completely unAustralian to not know the name of Vivian Bullwinkel and to know of her significant role in our history. But I’ll be honest in saying that I didn’t know very much beyond the general details. This is a fictionalised account of Vivian’s extraordinary courage…

  • The Daring Tale of Gloria the Great – Jacqueline Harvey. Illustrated by Kate Isobel Scott.

    Penguin Australia August 2023 I say it often, I miss my chookies (and there have been quite a few at numerous times over the years). Chooks have such personalities, and some of mine definitely did. Just such a hen is Gloria – indomitable, resilient and tenacious. She is her own chicken in every sense. In…

  • Wanderer – Victor Kelleher

    Publisher: Eagle Books Imprint: Christmas Press August 2022 ISBN: 9780645378818 RRP: $19.99 If I were to use the vernacular, I’d say it’s been a long time between drinks Victor, but it was certainly worth it. Multi-award winner, Victor Kelleher, has crafted his first middle grade novel in fifteen years with this gripping and absorbing post-apocalyptic…

  • Will the Wonderkid: Treasure Hunter of the Australian Outback – Stephanie Owen Reeder

      National Library of  Australia February 2020 ISBN:   9780642279521 RRP: $24.99 I adore this series! In Heritage Heroes, Reeder not only takes her readers on adventures but provides rich fodder for hunters of history. Each volume has explored the (often unknown) achievements of young Australian people of the past in a fictionalised narrative which is lavishly…

  • The Australia Survival Guide – George Ivanoff

      Penguin Australia October 2019 ISBN: 9780143796572 Imprint: Puffin RRP: $24.99 George Ivanoff is not just a pretty face. Under that luxuriant  mop of ever-changing hair there’s an inventive and clever brain which can produce not only awesome adventures of the fictional kind for readers but now the ultimate field guide to surviving in the harsh reality of…

  • The Quiet at the End of the World – Lauren James

    Walker Books ISBN: 9781406375510 Imprint: Walker March 2019 Australian RRP: $16.99 New Zealand RRP: $18.99 To be honest, I’m totally not a sci-fi person but this novel had me completely engrossed from the first page. London: 2109. Population: 300. Sixteen year old Lowrie and seventeen year old Shen are the only remaining ‘children’ on Earth after a mystery virus,…

  • I am Sasha – Anita Selzer

    Penguin Random House April 2018 9790143785743 RRP $17.99 Some triumphant recounts of survival against all odds have come out of the horror of the Holocaust. I am always humbled in admiration for those who endured such deprivation, suffering, cruelty and pain with courage and dignity and who rose from the basest of treatment to resume…

  • The Explorer – Katherine Rundell

    Bloomsbury September 2017 ISBN 9781408885284 RRP $16.99 We all know some young explorers; the ones who love adventure, the ones who watch Bear Grylls for the survival tips, the ones who pore over atlases and illustrated books of exotic places.  These are the ones who will adore this new book from Katherine Rundell with its…