Changing Gear by Scot Gardner

Inside the CBCA Shortlist Scot Gardner explores the young male experience with authenticity, most unexpectedly in the incomparable The Dead I Know, set in a funeral parlour, and most recently in Changing Gear (Allen & Unwin), which is very well written and engaging. Gardner hooks the reader into Changing Gear with some retrospective interaction between 10-year-old […]

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Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein

Inside the CBCA Shortlist Small Spaces (Walker Books) is shortlisted in the Older Readers category of the CBCA 2019 awards. Something happened in Tash’s past that continues to affect her life. As a child, she saw Mallory Fisher taken from the carnival by an “imaginary monster”. She told the police. Now Tash doesn’t trust her […]

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The Bogan Mondrian by Steven Herrick

Inside the CBCA Shortlist Steven Herrick has a stunning list of verse novels, poetry and prose for children and young adults. His books have been shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia awards multiple times and my favourite of his works, The Spangled Drongo, won the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards for children’s literature. I […]

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