Review search
Morphing Murphy (Robert Favretto, illus by Tull Suwannakit, Ford Street)
Released February 2019
Murphy is a happy tadpole, quite content with his life eating algae and rotting water plants all day. So happy that he wouldn’t change a thing … until he slowly... Read more
Jelly-Boy (Nicole Godwin, illus by Christopher Nielsen, Walker Books)
Released February 2020
In this deceptively simple story, a jellyfish falls in love with a plastic bag, having assumed that it’s a fellow jellyfish. The book’s aim is to teach children about the... Read more
Evie and Pog: Take Off! (Tania McCartney, HarperCollins)
Released February 2019
Six-year-old Evie and her best friend Pog the pug live in a treehouse next to obsessively tidy Granny Gladys’ house. Evie is accident-prone, wildly enthusiastic about the world, and enjoys... Read more
Emergency Rescue Angel (Cate Whittle, Scholastic)
Released February 2019
Mitch is rudderless and lonely after the death of his dad and the upheaval of his best mate across the country. Max is a goth angel—an Emergency Rescue Angel, to... Read more
Me and My Boots (Penny Harrison, illus by Evie Barrow, Little Hare)
Released February 2020
Author Penny Harrison exemplifies the beauty in nature and the power of self-expression through her books, which include The Art Garden, Dance with Me and Emily Green’s Garden. Her latest... Read more
A Year in the Mud and the Toast and the Tears: My (semi) rural kind of life (Georgie Brooks, Bad Apple Press)
Released February 2020
In the middle of another stifling summer in suburbia and in desperate need of a ‘tree change’ Georgie Brooks and her young family decide to make the bold move to... Read more
No Neat Endings: Stories (Dominic Carew, MidnightSun)
Released February 2020
Dominic Carew sketches masculinity faltering or in crisis in his short story collection No Neat Endings. In these snapshots of manhood, Carew depicts male kinship and identity fraught with the... Read more
Shark Arm: A shark, a tattooed arm and two unsolved murders (Phillip Roope & Kevin Meagher, A&U)
Released January 2020
Shark Arm is an offbeat true crime book that begins with a shark throwing up a man’s tattooed arm in front of onlookers at a Coogee aquarium in 1935. The... Read more
A Couple of Things Before the End: Stories (Sean O’Beirne, Black Inc.)
Released February 2020
The stories in this debut collection from Melbourne writer Sean O’Beirne are written as fictional, often funny monologues, letters, speeches, interviews, texts and emails, diary entries, official reports and online... Read more
Jane in Love (Rachel Givney, Michael Joseph)
Released February 2020
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen re-imaginings are an uneven offering. Some are brilliant; some less so. The fundamental challenges of this niche, however, remain constant: that... Read more
Maggie’s Going Nowhere (Rose Hartley, Michael Joseph)
Released January 2020
The eponymous character in Rose Hartley’s debut is introduced in the blurb as thoroughly relatable and a counterpart to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag. While the comparison feels true on the surface—both... Read more
Blueberries (Ellena Savage, Text)
Released March 2020
Ellena Savage’s debut collection of essays, Blueberries, is a breathtaking interrogation of the self in the world; the self within structures of power and oppression. Each essay examines a memory,... Read more
The Medicine: A doctor’s notes (Karen Hitchcock, Black Inc.)
Released February 2020
When discussing modern medicine there is a lot to consider. There are the complexities of the doctor/patient relationship. The wellbeing of doctors. How responsible treatment and the law sometimes intersect... Read more
Ten Doors Down: The story of an extraordinary adoption reunion (Robert Tickner, Scribe)
Released February 2020
As the rolling apologies for forced adoptions swept Australia in 2012 and 2013, it was too late for Robert Tickner’s mother—she had died, taking her secrets to the grave. But... Read more
Contest for the Indo-Pacific: Why China won’t map the future (Rory Medcalf, La Trobe University Press)
Released March 2020
How does the world balance China’s emergence as a global superpower? What are the risks ahead? How do nation states dilute China’s hegemony and avoid capitulation to its interests? These... Read more
Shirl (Wayne Marshall, Affirm)
Released February 2020
Wayne Marshall’s Shirl is a collection of bizarre, consistently funny stories that delights in dismantling the tropes of Australiana. From the adventures of a bereaved yowie at a Desperate and... Read more
Cherry Beach (Laura McPhee-Browne, Text)
Released February 2020
When best friends Ness and Hetty move to Canada together, it seems as though a new phase of their lives is beginning—but their shared past won’t relinquish its grip so... Read more
Return Ticket (Jon Doust, Fremantle Press)
Released March 2020
Jon Doust has now devoted three books to wilful, semi-autobiographical protagonist Jack Muir. While 2009’s Boy on a Wire and 2012’s To the Highlands saw Jack fumbling towards manhood, Return... Read more
Bird (Adam Morris, Puncher & Wattmann)
Released March 2020
A novel told from multiple viewpoints, Bird examines the Western Australian prison system via the cultural and social constructs that prop it up, while also exploring Indigenous and non-Indigenous identity.... Read more
In the Clearing (J P Pomare, Hachette)
Released February 2020
If J P Pomare’s Call Me Evie was a slow-burner of a psychological thriller, his follow-up, In the Clearing, is a pared-back firecracker where the danger is clear and present—even... Read more
