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When the Lights Went Out

Jul23
When the Lights Went Out

When the Lights Went Out

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the Lights Went Out

Lian Tanner

Jonathan Bentley

A & U Children’s, 2024

32pp., hbk., RRP $A24.99

9781761180019

The night was frosty dark but we were snug and cosy in the kitchen. Then SNAP! The lights went out.

And for the little person, what was familiar suddenly became scary.

Some candles soon offered a bit of light but when it started to get cold and Dad suggested an early night snug under the blankets, Mum had a better idea.  And the magic happened…

As the shadow of night falls, it can be scary for little ones as their memories of stories of “things that go bump in the night” and their imaginations take over. They are used to putting lights on to scare away the monsters and ghosts, but when those lights fail anxiety levels can increase and fear creeps in.

However, in this beautifully illustrated story with its night-time palette reflecting the storyline but with a beacon in each image for reassurance,  it is wonder, rather than fear, that prevails as the family become “explorers of the night country”.  The unknown becomes the known as people venture into the streets, the moon shines, invisible creatures of the night like foxes and owls are seen and shadows become what they really are.  What had been daunting and strange became familiar, even fun, and what was, to the adults, an inconvenience, became an adventure for the young.

Parenting styles have changed over time, and terms like ‘helicopter parents’ describe what many of our young people experience- kept protected and safe from anything that has the potential to disturb them in any way – and while it is natural for children to have concerns about the dark and the unknown when they are very little, normally this is quickly outgrown as they explore the world around them and learn such things have explanations.  Yet the levels of anxiety and mental health issues amongst today’s youngsters suggest that while keeping their kids safe is a parent’s primary role, this can be overdone.  Thus, this book has a message for parents as well as the young reader – by making the unknown known through conversations, connections and experiences fears can be allayed and comfort restored.  In this case, it is the community coming together, getting to know each other and celebrating that through music and dance, that dispels the little one’s anxiety, but there are strategies that can be implemented to ease the uncertainty of almost any situation.  The unexpected can become the expected – the reader has a good idea of what will happen the next time the lights go out for both adults and children.  

As winter tightens its grip on much of the country, and “snug and cosy in the kitchen” – literally and metaphorically – is not guaranteed, this is one to share and reassure our young readers that eventually the lights will come on again, especially if we can face the adventure together.  In the meantime, have fun exploring and explaining why the world is plunged into darkness on such a regular basis – lights or no lights! 

Jack’s Island

Jul21
Jack’s Island

Jack’s Island

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack’s Island

Norman Jorgensen

Fremantle Press, 2024

224pp., pbk., RRP $A17.99

 9781760992958

World War II, and following the bombings of Darwin, Broome and Onslow, the threat of a Japanese invasion of Western Australia looms large.  Jack’s father, with his specialist skills in road-making, is one of many required to go to Rottnest Island to construct an aerodrome as a first line of defence should Perth be attacked.  

As the local ferry Valkyrie hits turbulent seas on the journey there, with all but Jack hanging over the side in dire straits, it does not presage well for this to be a smooth period in young Jack’s life, and as he himself says, “I’m not that bad – I just get caught a lot.”  Jack soon teams up with Andrew “Banjo” Paterson and together, they find themselves in all sorts of strife as they just do the things that boys of that age in that era did – being in school where corporal punishment at the hands of stern schoolmasters was the norm, building billy carts and canoes, being where they shouldn’t because they are fascinated by what’s going on around them, climbing cliffs and trees with the inevitable consequences….

But as much as this story is about the derring-do of lads who find reserves of courage and resourcefulness they didn’t know they had, it is a story of friendship and loyalty and the acceptance of people for who they are as they are that only seems to happen amongst children.  This is particularly true when it comes to protecting the intellectually-challenged Dafty, and when he is lost overboard at sea, the boys are devastated. 

Norman Jorgensen has delved deep into his family’s past, particularly his father’s adventures on Rottnest during the war, and from this has created something unique – a story that shines a light on a past time when life was much more carefree in some ways, but also so much more restricted in others, not the least being the continuing prejudice towards those who are different in any way as well as rationing, conscription, and the threat of invasion hanging overhead especially when the boys find the helmet and rifle of a Japanese soldier at the base of a cliff. But for all that, there are times when it is LOL funny, and tear-in-your-eye serious, with endearing characters that took me back to my own childhood in post-war years when we roamed our local shoreline freely told to return only “when the tide turned or it got dark”. 

When this was first released, it won the WA Young Readers’ Book Award 2009 and was a CBCA Notable for that year, awards that were thoroughly deserved.  Now, re-released in a new livery, it remains an excellent read, one that will entertain and engage a new generation, including all those young lads who will see themselves in Jack and Banjo.    

To add an essential extra to the read, complete with actual photos of the time, be sure to watch and share this  remarkable book trailer

 

Mr McGee and his Hat

Jul2
Mr McGee and his Hat

Mr McGee and his Hat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr McGee and his Hat

Pamela Allen

Puffin, 2024

32pp., hbk., RRP $A24.99

9781761345050

Morning, and it’s time to get out of bed and get dressed.  So Mr McGee did just that- pulled on his trousers. his socks and his shoes, and lastly, his hat.  But suddenly, along came the strongest gust of wind and blew Mr McGee, his hat and his cat, even his bed and table and chairs high in the sky!  And while they landed safely when the wind stopped, Mr McGee couldn’t find his hat.  Where could it be?

It’s over 35 years since we first met Mr McGee who lives under a tree, and 25 years since his adventure with the biting flea that exposed his genitals and sent teachers, teacher librarians and parents racing for the whiteout so such “disgraceful” images had no place in a picture book for our youngest readers. 

But rather than corrupting young minds, it showed a generation of young readers that stories could be fun and energetic and real, and sent them looking for more books by this prodigious author who has been entertaining us for decades with more than 50 books, eight of them with Mr McGee as the key character.  Now in her 90s, Kiwi Pamela Allen says that she wrote this latest adventure to to escape the ‘prison of death’ following the passing of her husband last year, aged 100.“I had to re-establish my mental health among the living … And the way in which I could do that was to write a book. And I consciously put myself as a first priority, after his death, to re-establish my sense of worth. Because you lose all contact with the living drive that exists. But if death is forever a prison, you’ve got to climb out of it. So that’s why Mr McGee was a natural resource for me.”

And she hasn’t lost any of her touch since she first explained Archimedes principle in her first book in 1980, and still in print. With its rhyming text, and iconic illustrative style, little ones will delight in helping Mr McGee look for his hat while those who know will delight in telling him where to look because they know.  And while our youngest readers will delight in listening to the rhythm and the rhyme, their parents will be happily revisiting their own reading childhood, perhaps even seeking out some of Mr McGee’s earlier adventures to share.  

Through her stories with their sheer fun embedded in the plot, the words and the pictures, Pamela is up there with Mem Fox and Joy Cowley in contributing so much to the development of literacy and reading skills over the generations  She is one whose works I have used time and again over the decades of working with little ones both in New Zealand and Australia  and to revitalise her works and introduce them to a new generation of budding readers through the review of a new story is such a privilege.  

Discover and share all Mr McGee;s adventures...

Discover and share all Mr McGee;s adventures…

 

Finding Bear

Jun29
Finding Bear

Finding Bear

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding Bear

Hannah Gold

Levi Pinfold

HarperCollins GB., 2024

352pp., hbk., RRP $A19.99

9780008582012

When her mother is killed in a car crash, April’s scientist father retreats onto himself as he tries to deal with his grief and becomes the epitome of the absent-minded professor, leaving11-year-pld April to pretty much fend for herself.  So when he tells her he has applied to man the weather station on remote Bear Island in the Arctic Circle and they will be there alone for six months over the northern summer, April sees it as a chance to reconnect with her dad and start to build a new relationship with him.

However, things don’t work out that way with her dad becoming more and more withdrawn, leaving April to explore the island and entertain herself all day and all night as the sun does not set at this time of the year. Although she has been told that once polar bears roamed the island freely, because of climate change and the melting of the sea ice, there are now no bears left,  one evening, on the horizon, silhouetted against the sun , something moves. Something big and loping and gone in the blink of an eye but a polar bear, nonetheless. He is starving, lonely and a long way from home. Determined to save him, April begins the most important journey of her life…

Now, in this sequel to that compelling story of The Last Bear, April , who is not having an easy time trying to fit into school and all that that entails, returns to Svalbard after hearing that a polar bear has been shot and injured and she is convinced it is her special friend. As they begin an unforgettable journey across frozen tundra and icy glaciers. they discover a tiny polar bear cub, desperately in need of April’s  help. In freezing temperatures, she must navigate the dangerous Arctic terrain and face her deepest fears if she’s to save him, particularly as it means dealing with someone who is willing to shoot every polar bear on sight.

As with the first one, as well as bringing environmental issues to the fore, it also deals with some bigger issues as April has to learn to navigate and cope with her new relationship with her father as well as his new relationship with her principal.  There are echoes of this in the relationship between Bear and his cub and so, again, April is able to learn much about herself as she does about wild life and humanity’s impact on it, but there are also echoes of the relationship for the reader who may also be watching their own family dynamics transition, not only in terms of new partners coming in but also their own developing maturity and independence.

The Last Bear was such a compelling read that those who enjoyed it will want to follow up what happened next for April, her dad and the bear; while for those who haven’t read the first, this is a wonderful duo that will absorb them for days.  

 

 

Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat

Jun27
Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat

Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat

Li Chen

Penguin, 2024

208pp., graphic novel, RRP $A17.99

 9781761049477

Everyone knows that detectives are not the real deal unless they have a hat,  And so it is for Cat Town’s Detective Beans who has misplaced his.  His investigations take him all over the town as he meets and interviews different quirky residents, follows the clues and tries to solve the mystery – all before he has to be home in time for dinner with his mum.  

For independent readers who like graphic novels, this is the first in a new series that introduces them to the detective/crime genre with a mystery to solve,  twists and turns in the plot, a trusty sidekick and dodgy characters, and the need to sift the real from the not-so and put it together to reach a logical conclusion as the suspense and intrigue guilds – all within a story with a setting and theme suitable for younger readers.   

By putting their own detective’s hat on and engaging with the clues and puzzles, perhaps they will solve the mystery before Detective Beans does!

Or perhaps it will lead them into seeking other stories in this genre or maybe even beginning to recognise and understand the concept of genre itself and that each as its own particular themes, structures and devices that carry the tory along in a fairly predictable way.

 

Supersquirrel and the Crazy Rain Maker

Jun24
Supersquirrel and the Crazy Rain Maker

Supersquirrel and the Crazy Rain Maker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supersquirrel and the Crazy Rain Maker

Russell Punter

Josh Cleland

Usborne, 2024

80pp., pbk., RRP $A12.99

9781805315889

The Animal Action Squad is a top secret organisation of superheroes dedicated to fighting crime, and Supersquirrel is one of its operatives.  With her undercover occupation as a taxi driver, and her superpowers including being able to fly extremely quickly, x-ray vision and superhearing, she has to outwit the fiendish criminal mastermind Dr Drizzle and his sidekick Rocky who have stolen a top secret formula meaning danger if it gets in the wrong hands.

But she can’t do it alone – she needs the reader’s help, and this is what sets this remarkable little book aside from so many.  Part stepping-stone novel, part graphic novel, it is packed full of puzzles and clues that the reader needs to solve, making it as interactive as a print text can be.  Being directly involved as a character means the reader has to engage with the story, the text and its illustrations rather than a skim-read-what’s next book.  It can be read alone or shared as participants stop to consider what they have learned from a particular excerpt and how it fits into the overall scheme of things, encouraging deeper thinking, reflection and synthesising information. Although it doesn’t require making decisions to determine the path of the story, it could lead to an interest in the choose-your-own-adventure genre. 

A peek inside...

A peek inside…

This is the first in this series that I predict will become a must-have as it reaches out to newly independent readers, including those who are beginning to think that reading doesn’t really hold much for them.  So much more fun than pressing or tapping buttons just to accumulate a high score.  

Dragons of Hallow (series)

Jun15
Dragons of Hallow (series)

Dragons of Hallow (series)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dragons of Hallow (series)

Spellhound

9781761180057

Fledgewitch

9781761067365

A & U Children’s, 2024

352pp., pbk., RRP $A17.99

The first in this series begins… There are Three Great Secrets in Hallow, a country that loves secrets almost as much as it loves green jellybabies. No, I’m not going to tell you anything more about them. I am a loyal citizen of Hallow, and would never betray—
Oh, you have jellybabies?
Green ones?
Well, I suppose I could tell you a little more.
Come closer. Open your ears and your heart, and pass the green jellybabies.
I will tell you a story about an enormous magical pup, a child Queen and a very small minch-wiggin with the unfortunate title of Destroyer-of-Dragons…

And continues with a tale of “falsehoods, fortitude and friendship” about how a minch-wiggin, a Queen, and a rather large magical pup need to find the dragon that has turned their worlds upside-down-even if it means revealing all they want to keep hidden…

Two years later in Fledgewitch, life has moved on and Queen Rose is now twelve, and ruling Hallow with the Regent, Uncle Edwin and this story centres on ten-year-old Brim taken by Count Zaccar and Countess Xantha  to the School for the Prevention of Witches  because are the three Laws of Quill, carved in stone outside every town hall, and learnt by every schoolchild:
There shall be No Witches.
There shall be No Dragons.
There shall be NO SECRETS.

But Brim, despite having feathers sprouting from her elbows, and being the only one who can remember Snort, the Horned Glob, doesn’t believe she is a witch, one to be feared and outcast because of their dangerous, evil ways.

And so the story unfolds in a tale deeply rooted with themes of family, faith, loyalty and courage with engaging characters who display all those traits that we expect as they are pitted against dastardly, devious villains.  With its length, its seemingly unrelated stories  as well as the twists and turns in the plot, and the opportunity to put clues together if they are picked up, this is a series for fantasy-loving independent readers looking for something to sustain them over long winter nights, best read in order and best to read the first to establish the characters and their history and relationships – although these may not be what they seem.  

For those who want to know more about the author and how the series came to life, read this Q&A. 

 

 

Mawson in Antarctica: To the Ends of the Earth

Jun14
Mawson in Antarctica: To the Ends of the Earth

Mawson in Antarctica: To the Ends of the Earth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mawson in Antarctica: To the Ends of the Earth

Joanna Grochowicz

A & U Children’s, 2024

272pp., pbk., RRP $A19.99

9781761180590

Sir Douglas Mawson. His face is on the $A100 note; he has streets, suburbs and places named after him scattered across the country; and  the longest continuously operating station south of the Antarctic Circle bears his name.

So who is he and what did he do to deserve these honours? 

To learn that we need to go back to winter in Antarctica in 1912, just months after Amundsen and Scott have reached the South Pole, and a young Australian driven by his passion to contribute to scientific knowledge leads the Australian Antarctic Expedition intent on establishing research bases on the continent and sub-Antarctic islands to explore and chart the east Antarctic coastline  and learn from it.  As disaster befalls his team and gradually they perish, Mawson finds himself alone but is so determined to take both data and specimens back to base that he struggles on alone for 30 days, arriving just a few hours after the ship sent to retrieve the party had left..

Mawson’s remarkable tale of determination, endurance and resilience is retold in this absorbing narrative non fiction, the latest addition to this series which includes the journeys of Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton . Using a range of primary and secondary sources, its polar historian author tells the stories of these early pioneers of Antarctic exploration in a way that brings them to life, with all their foibles and faults as well as courage and tenacity, engaging the reader in a way that facts and figures, bare statements and grainy photographs can’t.  

And for those for whom a 272page book might be a bit daunting, there is also Douglas Mawson in the brilliant Meet… series, so an  opportunity for all to know a little about this remarkable real here. 

My own connections to the Antarctic were outlined in my review of Into the White – Scott’s Antarctic Odyssey but these are stories of real-life heroes that don’t require that sort of legacy to inspire their reading – these are for any independent reader of any age who enjoys true stories of doing the seemingly impossible, particularly in times when it is the human endeavour rather than the technological wizardry that determine success or otherwise.  Who knows – introducing a young person to this series just might be the trigger for a lifetime.

The Secret Doorway

Jun8
The Secret Doorway

The Secret Doorway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Secret Doorway

Catherine Sheridan

Little Steps, 2023

236pp., pbk., RRP $A18.95

9781922833297

Anna and her brother Peter are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime, leaving their home in Australia for a holiday in Ireland. Just before they leave, Anna has a dream about black birds, a huge, gnarly tree and an old key, and being in danger. But despite having special gifts of seeing and feeling things that others cannot, Anna has no idea that what she dreamed may become reality.

Their holiday home backs onto a forest, and having met up with some local kids and enjoying camping in the backyard, when a peculiar fog lit by strange lights roll in,  they can’t resist investigating and find themselves in a world of magical folk and mysterious happenings.  But getting back to their home isn’t as simple as finding the fence and climbing over it… 

The subtitle of this book – the first in a series – is “Four  go on an Adventure” and for those of us of a certain vintage it immediately stirs images of the much-loved stories by Enid Blyton and certainly the connections continue as the story unfolds and the children find themselves in an enchanted forest having to help those who live there but facing situations that have to be confronted and solved.  While there are many portal stories for young independent readers to choose, this is one that is a safe, gentle escape, perhaps the next step on from The Magic Faraway Tree series that they can now read for themselves; maybe  even a gateway to those series about The Adventurous Four,  The Famous Five, and The Secret Seven connecting them not only to the stories of a bygone era that sparked daydreams but also to their older relatives who may have enjoyed them just as much.  

The Bother with the Bonkillyknock Beast

Jun4
The Bother with the Bonkillyknock Beast

The Bother with the Bonkillyknock Beast

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miss Mary-Kate Martin’s Guide to Monsters (series)

The Bother with the Bonkillyknock Beast

Karen Foxlee

Freda Chiu

Allen & Unwin, 2024

288pp., pbk., RRP $A15.99

9781761470226

Although a rather anxious child who prefers  to make lists so she can plan and manage her life because she doesn’t cope with change well, nevertheless Mary-Kate Martin has left the sanctuary of her grandmother’s home to travel the world with her mother whose life is spent on mystery-solving adventures such as why the Woolington Wyrm was causing such destruction in a quiet English village, and an equally strange creature was bothering Galinios, an idyllic Greek Island. 

In this third episode of this series for young independent readers, Mary-Kate and her granny are going to stay at a very quiet castle near a very quiet Loch in the Scottish village of Bonkillyknock. The perfect destination for reading beside fireplaces, going for long walks in galoshes and drinking cups of tea with Granny’s old friends. At least, that’s what Mary-Kate thinks.

However, this is no ordinary reunion – it’s a World Society of Monster Hunters’ conference. So, when an ear-shattering howl interrupts the convention, Mary-Kate isn’t too anxious. After all, the experts are on hand to investigate.

But when the castle kitchen is turned upside-down and the experts suspect the usually secretive Loch Morgavie monster, Mary-Kate isn’t sure the clues add up. Could there be some other kind of beastly problem bothering Bonkillyknock Castle?  Miss Mary-Kate Martin might only be a beginner, but she’s determined to get to the end of this monstrous mystery.

The first one in this series had me hooked with its setting in an olde English village, and so one set in a Scottish castle with its promise of a wild wintery landscape and warm comfort inside also had lots of appeal!  After all, there is a reason I live where I do.  And, like its predecessors, it is an absorbing read, even for one who is not a fantasy fan. As well as its appealing setting that just cries out for something out of the ordinary to happen, engaging characters and fast-paced action keep the reader turning the pages as they watch Mary-Kate develop from being that over-anxious child to one who is confident and more self-assured. And again, the beast is firmly grounded in local mythology – this time, the legendary highland fairy hounds known as the cù-sith (coo-shee) – perhaps sparking an interest in local legends.  What might Mary-Kate, her mother and granny encounter if they met an Australian bunyip or yowie? Perhaps, after researching them, they could suggest a plot outline for Karen Foxlee for the next episode, or maybe bring it to life in drawings as Freda Chiu has with the other monsters in the endpages of the story.  Or maybe just investigate the legendary creatures, totems and other emblems of the local First Nations peoples… 

So, as well as a captivating read, there is potential for so much more…