A Glasshouse of Stars (Shirley Marr, Puffin)
Tuesday, 30 March 2021
Meixing and her family have recently arrived in the New Land with hopes of a better life. Everything is different for Meixing, including the large house that is now the...
Elsewhere Girls (Emily Gale & Nova Weetman, Text)
Tuesday, 16 March 2021
Acclaimed authors Emily Gale and Nova Weetman have teamed up to write this beautifully rendered time-slip narrative that delves into the personal and social struggles of young women past and...
Bear and Rat (Christopher Cheng, illus by Stephen Michael King, Puffin)
Tuesday, 16 March 2021
This picture book is a heartwarming, tender tale of the loving relationship between two friends. The elegantly simple story in Bear and Rat holds a timeless, universal appeal with themes...
Can’t Say it Went to Plan (Gabrielle Tozer, HarperCollins)
Wednesday, 10 March 2021
Schoolies is revered as a holiday unlike no other, where, for the first time, teenagers are free—from school, from adults, from responsibility. Can’t Say it Went to Plan follows three...
Common Wealth (Gregg Dreise, Scholastic)
Tuesday, 2 March 2021
In light of the recent change to the lyrics of ‘Advance Australia Fair’, as well as the ongoing debate surrounding January 26, this impassioned plea for recognition and unity from...
Sunburnt Veils (Sara Haghdoosti, Wakefield)
Tuesday, 23 February 2021
Sunburnt Veils is a debut Own Voices novel that feels very relevant, and author and political activist Sara Haghdoosti’s voice is fresh and edgy. At times it is uncomfortable to...
You’ve Let Them In (Lois Murphy, Transit Lounge)
Tuesday, 23 February 2021
Scott is not happy when his hippy stepmum convinces his dad to buy a house straight out of The Amityville Horror. A far cry from their comfortingly overcrowded flat, the...
The Katha Chest (Radhiah Chowdhury, illus by Lavanya Naidu, A&U)
Wednesday, 17 February 2021
In Radhiah Chowdhury and Lavanya Naidu’s book, elegant textile patterns are patchworked together with descriptive snapshot stories of young Asiya’s family members and their histories. Asiya delights in every one...
The Prison Healer (Lynette Noni, Penguin)
Wednesday, 10 February 2021
Lynette Noni, the winner of the 2019 Gold Inky for her dystopian sci-fi novel Whisper, returns to fantasy with The Prison Healer. Kiva’s daily life as prisoner and prison healer...
Huda and Me (H Hayek, A&U)
Wednesday, 10 February 2021
When their parents make a sudden trip back to their home country of Lebanon, Huda and Akeal find themselves left with their fellow siblings under the care of a family...
Return to Uluru (Mark McKenna, Black Inc.)
Thursday, 28 January 2021
‘Perspective is everything,’ writes historian Mark McKenna in Return to Uluru, his mesmeric history–true crime hybrid. When starting the book, McKenna expected to tell an expansive history of central Australia,...
The Believer (Sarah Krasnostein, Text)
Thursday, 28 January 2021
The people who populate The Believer are remarkably different from one another. There are, among others, a convicted murderer, a ‘death doula’, paranormal investigators, and Christian researchers who have dedicated...
Rajah Street (Myo Yim, Walker Books)
Wednesday, 20 January 2021
In this sunny picture book, three-year-old Junya watches the world outside his window as he waits hopefully for the arrival of one of his most favourite things ever: the garbage...
Hold Your Fire (Chloe Wilson, Scribner)
Wednesday, 20 January 2021
Hold Your Fire is the incisive and darkly funny fiction debut by Melbourne poet Chloe Wilson, author of Not Fox Nor Axe and The Mermaid Problem. The 17 stories in...
Waking Romeo (Kathryn Barker, A&U)
Wednesday, 20 January 2021
Waking Romeo is a stunning reimagining of the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet—meets Wuthering Heights, meets epic time-travelling extravaganza. The main story revolves around Juliet and a group of...
The Gaps (Leanne Hall, Text)
Wednesday, 13 January 2021
The fourth novel by 2009 Text Prize winner Leanne Hall is simultaneously harrowing and enchanting. The Gaps begins as abruptly as a slap, with a newscast declaring schoolgirl Yin Mitchell...
With a Little Kelp from Our Friends (Mathew Bate, illus by Liz Rowland, Thames & Hudson)
Wednesday, 2 December 2020
From the evolution of this fascinating stuff to its modern usage as food, fuel and building material, in With a Little Kelp from Our Friends Mathew Bate tells you everything...
Footprints on the Moon (Lorraine Marwood, UQP)
Wednesday, 2 December 2020
It’s 1969 and Sharnie is entering year seven and finding it difficult to make friends. The world is consumed by the Space Race and the Vietnam War, and Sharnie is...
The Boy From the Mish (Gary Lonesborough, A&U)
Wednesday, 25 November 2020
Jackson is an Aboriginal teen who lives with his mum and little brother; he has a girlfriend, good mates and the local men’s group. Then his aunty from the city...
The Silent Listener (Lyn Yeowart, Viking)
Wednesday, 18 November 2020
Lyn Yeowart’s debut crime thriller The Silent Listener is the intense, horrific, utterly devastating and totally addictive tale of the Henderson family. Spanning four decades and encompassing a missing child...
Coming of Age in the War on Terror (Randa Abdel-Fattah, NewSouth)
Wednesday, 18 November 2020
‘I’ve always had this almost pre-conceived guilt attached to who I was.’ — Jena (18, Lebanese–Australian, South West Sydney) On September 11 2001, two planes smashed into the World Trade...
Iceberg (Claire Saxby, illus by Jess Racklyeft, A&U)
Wednesday, 18 November 2020
There is no absolutely question as to why Claire Saxby and Jess Racklyeft are both multi-award-winning creators, and this book is a perfect partnership, eliciting the very best from both...
Tiger Daughter (Rebecca Lim, A&U)
Thursday, 5 November 2020
From Rebecca Lim, author and co-editor of the Meet Me at the Intersection YA anthology, this coming-of-age tale is about finding your own voice as a young girl in a...
The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman (Julietta Henderson, Bantam)
Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Norman Foreman isn’t your average 12-year-old: he’s obsessed with classic British comedy, he’s got raging psoriasis, and he and his best mate Jax have a five-year plan to perform stand-up...
Give Me Some Space! (Philip Bunting, Omnibus)
Wednesday, 7 October 2020
Una is a singular girl on a mission: leave boring old Earth behind for greener pastures—or in this case, planets. Smart, determined and ingenious, she crafts herself a homespun spacesuit...
Boy on Fire: The young Nick Cave (Mark Mordue, Fourth Estate)
Wednesday, 30 September 2020
After 35 years of communication with Nick Cave, 10 of them actively spent researching a biography which eventually grew to Moby Dick proportions, Mark Mordue has fashioned this expertly detailed...
Dog (Shaun Tan, A&U)
Wednesday, 23 September 2020
This is Shaun Tan doing what he does best. Carrying an elegant tension between joy and sadness, Dog left me in a puddle of emotion. The prose poetry traces the...
We Are Wolves (Katrina Nannestad, ABC Books)
Wednesday, 23 September 2020
In We Are Wolves, middle-grade author Katrina Nannestad, creator of the ‘Olive of Groves’ and ‘Girl, the Dog and the Writer’ series, moves confidently into more sombre territory with the...
Little Jiang (Shirley Marr, illus by Katy Jiang, Fremantle Press)
Wednesday, 2 September 2020
Born under a confluence of inauspicious signs and hitherto haunted by all manner of hungry ghosts, it’s difficult for Mei to dismiss her aunt’s firmly held belief that she is...
Infinite Splendours (Sofie Laguna, A&U)
Wednesday, 2 September 2020
Miles Franklin–winner Sofie Laguna’s fourth novel tells the story of Lawrence, a boy from a small western Victorian town near the Southern Grampians mountain range. Lawrence has a special, spiritual...
