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With a Little Kelp from Our Friends (Mathew Bate, illus by Liz Rowland, Thames & Hudson)

Released February 2021

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... Read more

Footprints on the Moon (Lorraine Marwood, UQP)

Released February 2021

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... Read more

The Boy From the Mish (Gary Lonesborough, A&U)

Released February 2021

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... Read more

The Price of Two Sparrows (Christy Collins, Affirm)

Released February 2021

Christy Collins’s The Price of Two Sparrows is an elegantly structured study of migration and community in Australia. A burgeoning Muslim community on the outskirts of Sydney has made plans... Read more

Buried Not Dead (Fiona McGregor, Giramondo)

Released February 2021

Outsider art, as critic Roger Cardinal once wrote, is ‘immune to the polarisations of culture and the copycat spirit of cultural art’. It’s fair to say that Fiona McGregor’s new... Read more

The Silent Listener (Lyn Yeowart, Viking)

Released February 2021

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... Read more

Beneath the Trees (Cristy Burne, Fremantle Press)

Released February 2021

Cam and her little sister Sophie have travelled halfway across Australia to see some platypuses in the wild, and even their mum forcing them to wear bright yellow emergency ponchos... Read more

Coming of Age in the War on Terror (Randa Abdel-Fattah, NewSouth)

Released February 2021

‘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... Read more

Iceberg (Claire Saxby, illus by Jess Racklyeft, A&U)

Released February 2021

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... Read more

Honey Blood (Kirsty Everett, HarperCollins)

Released February 2021

I learned a lot about cancer treatment from Kirsty Everett’s memoir Honey Blood: that chemotherapy can make you very sensitive to smells, that jellybeans are helpful for the taste of... Read more

Lola Online: #TheSecretUpstairsFanClubParty (Shannan & Tayla Stedman, Omnibus)

Released February 2021

Sisters Shannan and Tayla Stedman, children’s entertainers turned authors, try their hands at junior fiction with Lola Online, which comes after the 2018 release of their picture book Harlow and... Read more

The Second Son (Loraine Peck, Text)

Released February 2021

In Sydney’s western suburbs, the summer air thick enough to slice with a switchblade, Johnny Novak’s family reels from the murder of Ivan, his older brother. Their father, a notorious... Read more

Growing Up Disabled in Australia (ed by Carly Findlay, Black Inc.)

Released February 2021

Growing up Disabled in Australia, edited by Carly Findlay, is the latest anthology in Black Inc.’s ‘Growing Up’ series. Like the previous anthologies, it features both emerging and established writers.... Read more

Float or Sink? (Kylie Covark, illus by Andrew Plant, Ford St)

Released February 2021

Kylie Covark’s Float or Sink? quickly develops (after an opening that doesn’t quite nail the meter/rhyme structure to come) into a lively, playful story and preschool children will undoubtedly relish... Read more

The Imitator (Rebecca Starford, A&U)

Released February 2021

Rebecca Starford’s debut novel is a beautifully written espionage thriller that bookends the world-changing period of WWII. Its meticulously researched narrative draws the reader into the early life of Evelyn... Read more

Tiger Daughter (Rebecca Lim, A&U)

Released February 2021

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... Read more

Little Gem (Anna Zobel, Puffin)

Released January 2021

Little Gem is a witch-in-training who has the best intentions but doesn’t always get things quite right. When a travelling spell goes wrong Gem finds herself in the unusual village... Read more

The Women and the Girls (Laura Bloom, A&U)

Released January 2021

The Women and the Girls follows three mothers as they walk away from their unhappy marriages and move their children into a share house in Sydney. Against a backdrop of... Read more

Dingo Bold: The life and death of K’gari dingoes (Rowena Lennox, Sydney University Press)

Released January 2021

In Dingo Bold, Rowena Lennox wrestles with the emotionally laden subject of the human–wild divide through the lens of the policies managing the dingoes on K’gari (Fraser Island). Along the... Read more

Repentance (Alison Gibbs, Scribe)

Released January 2021

It’s 1976, a time of change and cultural shifts. The town of Repentance perches on the edge of the Great Dividing Range: the old families cut timber and the new... Read more