Open Your Heart to Country wins PM Children’s Literature Award

The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead & Wendy Mass

The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead & Wendy Mass ‘ “All of life is a mystery, in a way. And that makes every single one of us a detective.” … Evan sat there for a few seconds, looking at his desk. He was trying to solve a mystery, he realized: the mystery of the little […]

The Lorikeet Tree & the Carnegie Medal

The Lorikeet Tree by Paul Jennings The Lorikeet Tree by Paul Jennings (published in Australia by Allen & Unwin and by Old Barn Books in the US) is nominated for the highly prestigious 2024 Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing. This extraordinary middle-fiction (middle-grade) novel only solidifies Paul Jennings’s outstanding reputation. Some of his previous books […]

Dirrarn by Carl Merrison & Hakea Hustler

Dirrarn by Carl Merrison & Hakea Hustler Illustrated by Dub Leffler Published by Magabala Books “Mia felt so far from home. Growing up in a remote outback community, she had still faced her share of bullies. She’s dealt with it in her own way then. Telling a teacher sometimes worked, other times a big brother […]

Fleur Ferris and Seven Days

Fleur Ferris, Seven Days & other books “It blows my mind to think what we do today matters – not just to us, but to those who come after us, to those who aren’t even born yet. It can impact someone one hundred years from now.” (Seven Days) All of Fleur Ferris’ novels (published Penguin […]

The Raven’s Song by Zana Fraillon & Bren MacDibble

The Raven’s Song by Zana Fraillon & Bren MacDibble Inside the CBCA Shortlist Inside the 2023 CBCA Shortlist Inside the 2023 Notable Books The Raven’s Song by Zana Fraillon & Bren MacDibble (published by Allen & Unwin) The Raven’s Song is shortlisted and is an Honour Book in the CBCA 2023 Book of the Year […]

Paradise Sands: A Story of Enchantment by Levi Pinfold

Paradise Sands: A Story of Enchantment by Levi Pinfold (Published by Walker Books) Book review and suggested activities by Joy Lawn (Joy in Books) at PaperbarkWords blog ‘White roses we follow, towards Teller’s Hollow Dead earth to a spring, the house of a King A sip from the chalice, we enter his palace Break bread […]

A Giant’s Trek by Nick Stella

A Giant’s Trek by Nick Stella (Text Publishing) Guest author post by Nick Stella about A Giant’s Trek, an imaginative, well put-together fantasy adventure, at PaperbarkWords blog I love a good quest. A group of heroic characters bound together to achieve a common goal. Striding across plains, wading through marshes, climbing over mountains. Fighting monsters, solving riddles, […]

Big Tree by Brian Selznick

Big Tree by Brian Selznick Big Tree Book Review by Joy Lawn (Joy in Books) at PaperbarkWords blog Brian Selznick’s first major work The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a seminal book. Its combination of page after page of black and white drawings interspersed with pages of written text and its setting in a 1930s […]

inside the cbca 2023 shortlist

INSIDE THE CBCA 2023 SHORTLIST The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Shortlisted Books for 2023 has been announced. Follow the links to those books I have already reviewed, or interviewed the author or illustrator, on the blog. I will add to this list until the winners are announced in August. Also see the 2023 […]