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how to make a basket (Jazz Money, UQP)
Released September 2021
‘don’t forget this place / where life begins / tell it to the bubs to pass onto theirs / when strangers come / when other trees fall’ Jazz Money writes... Read more
Road Tripping with Pearl Nash (Poppy Nwosu, Wakefield)
Released September 2021
Since her 2018 debut Making Friends with Alice Dyson, shortlisted for the Adelaide Festival Unpublished Manuscript Award and the Readings Young Adult Book Prize, Poppy Nwosu has been creating protagonists that are a... Read more
Happy Hour (Jacquie Byron, A&U)
Released September 2021
Three years after her husband’s death, 65-year-old artist Frances Calderwood has developed a drinking problem and squirrelled herself away from human contact. However, the cocoon built by the quirky, acerbic... Read more
Sold Down the River (Scott Hamilton & Stuart Kells, Text)
Released September 2021
Once upon a time, Australian farmers traded thousands of megalitres of water for something as simple as a slab of beer. Then the economic mood changed. The 1980s brought political leaders... Read more
The Song of Lewis Carmichael (Sofie Laguna, illus by Marc McBride, A&U)
Released September 2021
Lyrical, mesmerising and full of heart, The Song of Lewis Carmichael by Sofie Laguna, complemented by the soft, detailed pencil drawings of Marc McBride, is a beautiful middle-grade adventure story... Read more
The Things We See in the Light (Amal Awad, Pantera Press)
Released September 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,... Read more
A Trip to the Hospital (Freda Chiu, A&U Children)
Released September 2021
Freda Chiu’s first picture book, aimed at children aged three to seven, provides a friendly introduction to the idea of hospitals and what might happen in them. Largely informational rather... Read more
An Insider’s Plague Year (Peter Doherty, MUP)
Released August 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... Read more
The School for Talking Pets (Kelli Anne Hawkins, illus by Beth Harvey, HarperCollins)
Released September 2021
With her debut middle grade novel, The School for Talking Pets, Kelli Anne Hawkins brings us a delightful tale that is reminiscent of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Mysterious Benedict Society. Rusty Mulligan is... Read more
Half My Luck (Samera Kamaleddine, HarperCollins)
Released August 2021
The first winner of HarperCollins’ Matilda Children’s Literature Prize is a warm-hearted and authentic coming-of-age story about the impact of race and place on our sense of self and belonging.... Read more
Dark as Last Night (Tony Birch, UQP)
Released August 2021
It’s a deceptively simple premise: two young brothers bond over a newfound love of bike riding. But as ‘Bicycle Thieves’ unfolds, a sweet yet dark and sorrowful undercurrent starts to... Read more
Recipe for a Kinder Life (Annie Smithers, Thames & Hudson)
Released August 2021
If you’ve had the good fortune to dine at Trentham’s du Fermier, where much of the food served is grown on chef/owner Annie Smithers’s own property, Babbington Park, in the... Read more
Grandma’s Prickly Secret (Trudie Trewin, illus by Nelli Suneli, Larrikin House)
Released August 2021
When the child in this picture book barges in on their grandma in the bathroom attempting to pluck out two prominent chin hairs, they proceed to list all the ways... Read more
Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life (Zarah Butcher-McCunnigle, Giramondo)
Released August 2021
‘I’m shopping local this year and I’m single,’ says the narrator of this novella. ‘I keep thinking “please kill me” and “back to basics.”’ Written in a fragmentary form reminiscent... Read more
Imaginative Possession: Learning to live in the Antipodes (Belinda Probert, Upswell)
Released August 2021
Thirty-five years after migrating to Australia from London, educator and social scientist Belinda Probert is still struggling to feel at home in a country that is so ancient and so... Read more
The Airways (Jennifer Mills, Picador)
Released August 2021
Jennifer Mills’s The Airways unsettles the boundaries between consciousness, self and the physical world, deep-diving into the parallels between the workings of the human body and the cities we navigate.... Read more
Underground: Marsupial outlaws and other rebels of Australia’s war in Vietnam (Mirranda Burton, A&U)
Released August 2021
Mirranda Burton’s graphic novel presents an overview of Australia during the Vietnam War by following three main characters: anti-war activist Jean McLean, Vietnam veteran Bill Cantwell and refugee Mai Ho.... Read more
The Overthinkers (Lisa Portolan & Ben Cheong, Big Sky Publishing)
Released August 2021
Four gen Zs in Sydney grapple with status, socialising and self-acceptance in the The Overthinkers by Lisa Portolan and Ben Cheong. First we are introduced to Leo, a self-deprecating gay... Read more
Devils in Danger (Samantha Wheeler, UQP)
Released August 2021
When strange things start happening around 11-year-old Killarney’s house—missing clothes, screaming in the night—she becomes determined to solve the mystery. Killarney soon discovers that the culprit is a wild Tasmanian... Read more
The Spectacular Suit (Kat Patrick, illus by Hayley Wells, Scribble)
Released August 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,... Read more
