Growing Up in Flames (Zach Jones, Text)
Tuesday, 18 January 2022
Zach Jones’s debut novel Growing Up in Flames is as gritty as bushfire ash. Written for a doctorate in creative writing at the University of the Sunshine Coast, the novel’s...
Son of Sin (Omar Sakr, Affirm)
Tuesday, 11 January 2022
Son of Sin by Omar Sakr tells the story of growing up queer and Muslim in a constant state of dispossession. The story begins with Jamal as a 14-year-old boy,...
Pearly and Pig and the Great Hairy Beast (Sue Whiting, Walker Books)
Tuesday, 11 January 2022
Pearly Woe is not your average 10-year-old. She can speak 27 languages, talk to and understand most animals and, in this tale, travels to Antarctica. However, this is no holiday....
Tik Merauke: An epidemic like no other (John Richens, MUP)
Wednesday, 1 December 2021
In the early 1900s the sexually transmitted infection donovanosis ravaged the Marind of New Guinea. Through the lens of this disease, known as tik Merauke to the native people, doctor...
Found, Wanting (Natasha Sholl, Ultimo Press)
Tuesday, 9 November 2021
Beginning with a sudden death, Natasha Sholl’s memoir sets us up to expect a traditional grief narrative, ending with the author having processed the loss, found new meaning in their...
Family Tree (Josh Pyke, illus by Ronojoy Ghosh, Scholastic)
Tuesday, 26 October 2021
Family Tree shares the beauty of life through the growth of a tree, one that unites families and communities around the world, spreading joy, love and spirit—and it all starts...
Devotion (Hannah Kent, Picador)
Tuesday, 21 September 2021
When Hanne meets Thea, her life suddenly makes sense. They live in Kay, a tight-knit community of devout Lutherans who have been shunned for their beliefs. Both girls, on the...
The Boy and the Elephant (Freya Blackwood, HarperCollins)
Tuesday, 21 September 2021
After almost 20 years of her books on our shelves, a new Freya Blackwood is always cause for delight. The Boy and the Elephant—Blackwood’s first wordless picture book—allows her quiet...
Danged Black Thing (Eugen Bacon, Transit Lounge)
Wednesday, 15 September 2021
Lyrical, rich, oftentimes dark and sometimes hopeful, Danged Black Thing is a speculative fiction collection that takes the reader on a journey from Africa to Australia. The cities and villages the stories are set...
Tomorrow is a Brand-New Day (Davina Bell, illus by Allison Colpoys, Scribble)
Wednesday, 8 September 2021
Tomorrow is a Brand-New Day is an ode to making a mistake and then making things right. It follows two children—friends with different styles—who come into conflict with each other...
Marcie Gill and the Caravan Park Cat (Monica McInerney, illus by Danny Snell, Puffin)
Wednesday, 8 September 2021
With a dozen adult novels under her belt, Monica McInerney is now turning her hand to children’s fiction and her first foray into middle-grade territory is just as full of heart and laughter as her...
Another Day in the Colony (Chelsea Watego, UQP)
Tuesday, 31 August 2021
Chelsea Watego’s debut essay collection Another Day in the Colony documents the sustained racism First Peoples suffer in this continent. Through critical race scholarship, memoir and archival imagery a powerful assemblage is...
How to Repaint a Life (Steven Herrick, UQP)
Tuesday, 24 August 2021
How to Repaint a Life is the latest offering from Steven Herrick, author of award-winning young adult titles including The Simple Gift and The Bogan Mondrian. This is gritty, heartbreaking prose that delves into...
Norton and the Borrowing Bear (Gabriel Evans, Berbay)
Tuesday, 24 August 2021
Gabriel Evans is fast becoming one of the most consistently delightful Australian picture book creators of recent years. With each release he adds to his oeuvre with such apparent ease,...
The First Scientists (Corey Tutt, illus by Blak Douglas, Hardie Grant)
Wednesday, 18 August 2021
In The First Scientists, Corey Tutt, founder of the Deadly Science charity and NSW Young Person of the Year 2020, brings us an extremely engaging, informative and at times funny account of...
My Brother Ben (Peter Carnavas, UQP)
Tuesday, 10 August 2021
Acclaimed Australian children’s writer Peter Carnavas has followed up his wonderful first novel The Elephant with another book equally full of heart. An ode to sibling relationships, growing up and the natural world, My...
Permafrost (S J Norman, UQP)
Tuesday, 10 August 2021
Permafrost is a decadent, artistic delight, full of sensory pleasure for the reader. S J Norman, a visual and performance artist who won the inaugural Kill Your Darlings Manuscript Award with this collection, makes a...
Bodies of Light (Jennifer Down, Text)
Tuesday, 10 August 2021
Bodies of Light is Jennifer Down’s third book and her best yet. It begins with fierce, ageing Maggie (now living in the US under a new identity) being prompted to revisit...
Dark Rise (C S Pacat, A&U)
Tuesday, 3 August 2021
Will is on the run from the men who killed his mother. When a terrifying artefact is unleashed on the Thames docks, Will finds himself thrust into a hidden world...
The Stoning (Peter Papathanasiou, Transit Lounge)
Tuesday, 3 August 2021
At dawn one Sunday, homicide detective George Manolis is woken with a call: a schoolteacher has been murdered in the outback town of Cobb, and the local police need his...
Dragon Skin (Karen Foxlee, A&U)
Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Dragon Skin is the much-anticipated new novel by Karen Foxlee, author of cherished modern classics including the internationally successful Lenny’s Book of Everything. Foxlee is skilled at writing brave yet vulnerable young...
In Moonland (Miles Allinson, Scribe)
Wednesday, 21 July 2021
Miles Allinson’s accomplished second novel—the follow-up to his moving and deeply personal 2015 debut Fever of Animals—is an ambitious and gripping story of parenthood, utopias and environmental collapse, told across several interconnected narratives. The narrator of...
My Friend Fox (Heidi Everett, Ultimo Press)
Tuesday, 13 July 2021
This memoir from mental health recovery advocate Heidi Everett is a thoroughly real and stunningly evocative retelling of her life as a person with diagnosed mental illness. Everett tells the...
The Things We See in the Light (Amal Awad, Pantera Press)
Wednesday, 30 June 2021
This book opens with Sahar arriving on her best friend Lara’s doorstep in Newtown, and it’s apparent Sahar has changed a lot since Lara last saw her. Once a shy,...
An Insider’s Plague Year (Peter Doherty, MUP)
Tuesday, 29 June 2021
Laureate Professor Peter Doherty is one of the most well placed individuals to write a walk-through of the past year and a half of pandemic life. A Nobel Prize-winning immunologist...
The Spectacular Suit (Kat Patrick, illus by Hayley Wells, Scribble)
Wednesday, 9 June 2021
Parties can be extremely important for children. Especially for Frankie, the protagonist of The Spectacular Suit, who has never asked for a party before. With everyone in her class coming,...
Sugar Town Queens (Malla Nunn, A&U)
Tuesday, 8 June 2021
Sugar Town Queens is a young adult coming-of-age novel by Malla Nunn, author of When the Ground is Hard. Her latest book follows 15-year-old Amandla, who is mixed-raced and growing...
Albert Namatjira (Vincent Namatjira, Magabala)
Wednesday, 2 June 2021
In his picture book biography Albert Namatjira, Vincent Namatjira paints a stoic and quietly devastating portrait of his great-grandfather Albert, one of the most iconic figures in Australian painting. An...
The Night Village (Zoe Deleuil, Fremantle Press)
Tuesday, 1 June 2021
A year ago, Paul and Simone met at a party—young, carefree and living separate lives. Now, they’re parents to a tiny new baby and nothing between them is the same....
The Mother Wound (Amani Haydar, Macmillan)
Tuesday, 25 May 2021
Like her own mother before her, Amani Haydar lost her mother young. In 2006 Haydar’s grandmother was killed in the 2006 Israeli–Lebanese conflict. In 2015 Haydar’s mother was murdered by...
