Reviews

Illusions of Fate by Kiersten White

Awful auntie by David Walliams

HarperCollins, 2016. ISBN 9780007453627
(Age: 8+) Highly recommended. Humour, Horror, Orphans, Ghosts. With tongue in cheek humour, and a lot of slapstick and situational comedy, Walliams has written a hilarious story of a childhood complete with dead parents, an avaricious aunt, a butler who is away with the fairies and a ghost called Soot. Waking helplessly swathed in bandages Stella finds that her aunt wants the deeds to her house, Saxby Hall to force her to sign the house over to her, and will stop at nothing to achieve her desire. Aunt Alberta's poisoning of her brother and his wife was meant to include their daughter, Stella but she tipped her tea into the pot plant. Her formidable aunt along with her pet owl, a Great Bavarian Mountain Owl, no less, called Wager, loves tiddlywinks but only if she wins. Consequently Stella's father has hidden the deeds in a place she will never look, the rule book for the game. But Aunt Alberta is a force to be reckoned with, not only wearing her best Sherlock Holmes' outfit, she spends the time while Stella is trapped in her bandages to good effect, almost turning the house and all of tis contents upside down in search for the deeds.
Tied to a rack in the cellar, Stella sees Soot the ghost of a former chimney sweep in this hall who wants to help her. Together the pair devise plans to thwart aunt's plans and readers will love the various tricks they perpetrate to unseat aunt. Funny from first page to the last, readers will love following the exploits of Stella and Soot, helped along with Tony Ross' very funny illustrations, especially those at the start, introducing the characters. He obviously relished doing the illustrations making sure that all readers could be in no doubt about the character of his subjects. Even the owl, Wagner, looks intimidating.
Fran Knight

Historium activity book by Richard Wilkinson and Joy Nelson

Five Mile Press, 2015. ISBN 9781760403706
(Age: 8+) History, Museums, Civilisations. This book is an activity book designed to be a companion to the Historium book published in 2015. The original large and imposing (and heavy) book directed the reader to use it like a museum, opening pages to the great civilisations of the world, using each section to gain an overview of what is held in various museums about that civilisation. The curators (cute!) present the civilisations of Africa beginning with a group of Stone Age tools from one million years ago. The book moves on to several civilisations within the last two thousand years leaving their mark with a glorious gold leaf rhinoceros and ivory mask, before settling into the Egyptian period, better known to the audience. Each page has wonderful illustrations drawn from original photographs taken in various museums around the world, and several paragraphs of information about the artifact, its date, its importance and where it was found and is now housed. This activity book is similarly confined in what it deals with.
It offers puzzles and games, fill in the box activities, more bits of information, colouring in pages and so on. It feels like something from history lessons of the past but may have a place as a teacher reference for photocopying.
Fran Knight

Chasing asylum, a filmmaker's story by Eva Orner

Harper Collins Australia, 2016. ISBN 9781460751930
(Age: Senior secondary to adult) Highly recommended. As the blurb on the back cover says this is a personal story of what drives a filmmaker to pursue their vision; the doubts, the mental and physical costs of undertaking the challenge of making a film on a subject that nobody seems to want to know about, and which the Australian government wants to make sure that nobody knows about.
Eva Orner travelled to Indonesia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iran at great cost to her own physical health and safety, to seek out interviews with refugees who had fled their country and taken the risky journey by boat to seek refuge in Australia only to be incarcerated in prison-like camps on desolate islands in the Pacific. She also interviewed the camp workers who became whistleblowers about the inhumane treatment they witnessed.
Bravely she even explores the question of what is a genuine refugee, are asylum seekers truly trying to escape persecution and death or just wanting a better life? The response she got from one interviewee is that he was suffering, his soul was suffering. People were trying to escape danger, war, hardship and persecution, all were seeking freedom and the chance to make a better life for their families.
It is interesting to see the film Chasing asylum and to then read the book. In the book there are so many more interesting personal stories and friendships created in other parts of the world, stories that were cut from the film because, as Eva says, 90 minutes is long enough for a documentary and it was important that the film focussed on the main message about Australia's response to refugees. We as a nation could be doing so much better in caring for people who are simply asking us for help, people who are driven by desperate circumstances to take their chances in a hazardous journey in the hope of a better future. Australia has contributed to people's displacement by dropping bombs on countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria but is not willing to help them when they flee the devastation those bombs cause. Eva Orner's book is a plea for greater empathy, for Australia to become a more generous more compassionate nation. She says 'We are so lucky to live in this country - surely we can share some of this luck?'
Helen Eddy

Here where we live by Cassie Flanagan Willanski

Wakefield Press, 2016. ISBN 9781743054031
(Age: 16+) Recommended. The nine short stories in Here where we live are set in South Australia but their themes are universal. Cassie Flanagan Willanski's characters deal with those turning points in life when complexity is unavoidable and choices are difficult. Readers can recognise and be moved by the unintended consequences of a child's impulsive behaviour, the passage from adolescence to adulthood, the challenge of combining parenthood with long-held dreams, divorce and the death of a partner. Intertwined with these lives are the characters' relationships with Indigenous people and the landscape. Attempts to reconcile conflicted feelings in personal lives are mirrored in the search by Australians for reconciliation with their history.
The author's use of language is economical but vivid. Whether writing in the first or third person, as an adult or as a child, her skill as a short story writer is evident in her ability to create convincing characters and their worlds in a few pages. She also ensures that her readers are constantly aware of the environment, the physical sensations it evokes and its emotional impact. Interactions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are thought-provoking and capture the feelings of the participants - the sadness and confusion caused by cultural misunderstanding, and the peace of mind derived from shared experience and acceptance. Issues such as the Hindmarsh Island Bridge controversy and atomic testing in South Australia and Nevada are handled with sensitivity.
Here where we live is challenging, occasionally confronting, multifaceted and satisfying literature for mature readers.
Elizabeth Bor

Origami heart by Binny

Lothian Children's Books, 2016. ISBN 9780734416971
(Ages: 5-8) Recommended. Friendship. Loneliness. Love. Kabuki is a rabbit living in the middle of a big, busy city who likes everything to be neat and organised. He wears his heart on his sleeve (he literally wears a heart badge on his chest) and puts love into everything he does. He has only one friend, named Yoko, and today she is coming to visit. Kabuki dresses carefully, finds the perfect food and flowers for his guest, prepares all the vegetables into exact heart shapes, organises the house just so, and waits... When he gets a note from Yoko saying she is sorry, his eyes fill with tears; he takes his heart patch from his chest, folds it into a paper plane and throws it into the city. Yoko catches Kabuki's heart, and understanding his need for her, goes to him.
The illustrations have a distinctly Japanese feel and use a limited colour palette, with red (love) being the main colour. You really feel Kabuki's excitement as he prepares for Yoko's arrival and his sheer dejection when he receives her note. Yoko shows what it means to be a true friend - to come when you are needed most, and the Kabuki gives the reader a true understanding of what it means to be lonely. The illustrations help in this sense, as his world without Yoko is lifeless and colourless. It is not until she arrives that the colour returns. The front and back inside covers have instructions for making the origami heart (difficult but achievable for the top tier of the target audience) that comes with the book and for transforming it into a paper plane.
Nicole Nelson

Princess Betony and the unicorn by Pamela Freeman

Walker, 2012. ISBN 9781925381023
When Princess Betony's mother disappears into the Dark Forest, a place humans are forbidden to enter, she cannot obey the rules and attempts to follow her mother, the dryad, to ensure that she returns to her family. To add to the challenge, the Princess must first catch a unicorn. Will she be successful in her quest?
Pamela Freeman has proven herself to be a competent and engaging author, able to attract the attention of her younger readers and the format of this delightful gift book, styled after Beatrix Potter's original titles, is bound to delight. With the addition of some simple illustrations by Tamsin Ainslie, this holds much appeal and intrigues the reader with the promise of further stories to follow.
Having searched for her online, I was quite taken by the author's website and the Princess Betony website on which she includes some of the beautiful illustrations from Princess Betony, a book trailer and games and puzzles which are bound to appeal to young girls as well. This clever aspect to the marketing of books is bound to lead a few more readers to investigate Freeman's books.
Jo Schenkel

The Dark Artifices: Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

Simon and Schuster, 2016. ISBN 9781471116612
(Age: 14+) Recommended. Emma Carstairs is a shadowhunter, a half angel warrior sworn to fight demons. She has a parabatai Jullian Blackthorn. They are best friends and can be everything to each other as long as they never fall in love. When Julian returns from England he is distant towards Emma and just when she needs him to be himself more than ever Emma uncovers bodies that have been murdered the same way her parents were when she was a child and an uneasy alliance is formed with the faeries.
After reading the first two books of Cassandara Clare's Mortal Instruments I thought this book was going to be the same style but surprisingly it wasn't. It took a while to get used to the new characters in a new world but knowing many of the older characters made it easier.
Once I started the book I couldn't put it down. It was fast paced and never left you feeling you wanted more and since finishing this book I have gone back and read The Infernal Devices series. I loved how she made you feel the characters and they weren't stereotypical. It has been a long time since a book has made me laugh out loud and cry from the same story.
I would recommend this book for readers 14 years and above and have loved her other series Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices. I look forward to reading Lord of Shadows due to be released in April 2017 and followed by The Queen of Air and Darkness.
Jody Holmes

Basket Cat by Katie Abey

The Five Mile Press, 2016. ISBN 9781760402303
(Ages: 1 - 4) Board book, homes. Katie Abey, English author and illustrator, has created this bright, bold and glossy board book with textured illustrations (woven baskets, furry cats, patterned wallpaper, and wooden floorboards). The humorous illustrations, showing the cat looking very out of place in a hanging flower basket and dreaming of a basket-weave rocket ship, will amuse young readers. Basket Cat just loves baskets. Basket Cat even dreams about baskets. She makes herself comfortable in any basket she can find, from picnic baskets and flower baskets to washing baskets. But none of them are just hers . . . until one day she wakes up to her very own cosy cat basket. The simplicity of this book (perfect for its target audience) means that the text doesn't tell us everything (e.g., what the cats are dreaming about), leaving opportunities for children to point things out and infer meaning from the illustrations. Young children will be able to relate to this short text about having a place (home, bed, etc.) where you feel comfortable and cosy.
Nicole Nelson

From Burma to Myanmar by Lydia Laube

Wakefield Press, 2015. ISBN 9781743053928
(Age: Adult) Recommended. Lydia Laube has been 5 times to Burma, now called Myanmar, and this book tells of those travels, from the first two trips with her sister, to the most recent solitary journey (at the age of 66, I calculated), on a freight ship, the Buxstar, sailing from Adelaide to Sydney then around the bottom of New Zealand, up through the Torres Strait, past Indonesia to Singapore then overland to Bangkok and a short flight to Yangon.
Lydia often chooses unconventional travel - boats, buses, trains, tuktuks, horse carts and motorbikes - and it seems that half the fun is negotiating transport and time schedules and language misunderstandings. There are many misadventures that I am not sure I could handle as coolly as she seems to. She describes arriving at one train station in Burma in the early hours of the morning -
'there were six men standing in a half circle around me all telling me the train to Yangon left at nine in the morning and that I should wait there until then as there was no taxi. 'No sleeper' they shouted like a Greek chorus.'
She ends up sleeping in the stationmaster's office under their continued observation.
Lydia often finds herself in bizarre circumstances, the lone foreign woman, an object of much curiosity, but she always seems to take everything in her stride with a cool unflappability. One young 'Friend' who commandeers her transport arrangements attempts to extort extra money from her . . .
'He said the taxi driver wanted another five thousand kyat. He could not look me in the eye when he said this so I knew it was a con. He also entered my room, shut the door and lay on the bed to deliver the message, which is not done in polite circles, Burma or anywhere. I paid him the five thousand to get rid of him.'
And that is all she says about it! Nothing seems to unnerve her.
Generally, however, she meets with curiosity, kindness and extraordinary generosity and helpfulness; people she encounters seem willing to go out of their way to help her with accommodation, transport and advice.
In her usual understated way she tells of challenges with plumbing, toilets and strange unidentifiable food that never seems to get the better of her appetite. She clearly loves travelling alone, finding her way without fear, and in the process we share in her adventures and learn about the many treasures of Burma and other out of the way places in the world.
Helen Eddy

Hillary: a biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Karen Blumenthal

Bloomsbury, 2016. ISBN 9781408873922
(Age: Senior secondary to adult) Recommended. This biography is a very readable linear account of Hillary's life so far. It describes her achievements and her obvious qualities - she's intelligent, driven, and strategic, and now she is a presidential candidate.
She was educated and formed her political opinions during the volatile 1960s. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jack and Robert Kennedy as well as the Vietnam War and the battle for black equality were significant at this time.
While describing the progression of Hillary's legal career the book gives an insight into inequality in the United States and how that society is fragmented.
Inevitably it arrives at how Hillary met Bill and their contrasting characters - her somewhat dour nature, his charismatic charm, but also his failings. One is left wondering whether Hillary has been helped or hindered by her link with Bill.
Undoubtedly Hillary is a role model to many women, not only in the US but worldwide. Will she be the first female president of the USA? Only time will tell. However no one can doubt her ambition.
Robert McNair

The Outliers by Kimberly McCreight

Harper Collins, 2016. ISBN 9780008115067
(Age: 15+) Highly recommended. For a girl who didn't leave her house for three weeks, a road trip to save her best friend is almost too much - thankfully the anxiety-ridden Wylie is much better in an emergency than at home. Despite beginning like a typical YA drama, McCreight's novel quickly progresses into something more sinister.
Cassie is missing. No one knows where she is. Her mum suspects that she's taken off. Cassie hasn't been the same since she started dating Jasper and got accepted into the 'Rainbow Coalition'. While Wylie has tried to be a good friend and keep Cassie safe, Cassie refused to listen - now she's missing and Wylie is worrying whether she could have kept Cassie around had they been speaking. Already blaming Jasper, Wylie is shocked when he shows up claiming that Cassie has sent him. Soon enough Wylie too receives a mysterious text from Cassie, pleading for help and providing directions to an unknown location. What choice does Wylie have but to fly to her friend's rescue? But leaving the house is a bigger deal than just walking out the front door - with anxiety so crippling she had to switch to homeschooling and a father who is keeping a big secret. Soon Wylie, Cassie, and Jasper will learn that they are part of something bigger than just Cassie going off the rails. She was kidnapped 'for her own safety'; will they be able to save her before she becomes just another missing person?
A fast-paced mystery thriller with elements of speculative fiction, this novel is both easy to read and engrossing. I finished the book in a single sitting, continually promising myself 'just one more chapter'. Well written, The Outliers explores the importance of honesty and loyalty in friendships - without a prominent romantic sub-plot for Wylie, there is nothing to distract her from her battle with anxiety, and her desire to keep her friends safe. I would highly recommend this novel for readers over the age of fourteen who enjoy mystery with a hint of speculative fiction.
Kayla Gaskell (University student aged 20)

Was not me! by Shannon Horsfall

Angus and Robertson, 2016. ISBN 9781460752463
(Age: 4+) Recommended. Humour. Rhyme. Excuses. Blame. Infectious rhyming lines along with hilarious illustrations will have readers readily beguiled by this insightful story. The narrator's twin is called Not Me, and he is the one to blame whenever something untoward occurs. Not Me is the call every time a mess is made or the bathroom flooded after a game of pirates, or the leaves litter the garden after Not Me swings from the grapevine. Not Me is to blame and the cheeky lad seems to get away with the results of his mayhem, hiding behind Mum's legs and smiling at his brother. Unfortunately no one else can see Not Me. He leaves a trail of debris through the house, crayon on the walls, a messy bathroom, biscuits on the floor, wrecking his bed after using it as a trampoline and finally swinging from the chandelier. It is this adventure that makes him realise just who Not Me really is as he swings past the mirror, and the laughter from the readers will drown out the teacher's voice as he gets to the end of the story.
Young readers will read it over again, noticing that Not Me is hiding on most pages, the reader often only seeing his disappearing leg or head, and taking note of the many messes he leaves behind. The stripe t-shirt stands out on each page and his bespectacled face contrasts with the bemused smile on Not Me's face.
Readers will love comparing Not me's brother's behaviour and excuses with their own, and ponder their impact upon their household, especially their long suffering mother. And I love the layout of each page and the font used.
Fran Knight

The Fizz series by Lesley Gibbes

Ill. by Stephen Michael King. A police dog adventure series. Allen and Unwin, 2016.
Fizz and the show dog jewel thief. ISBN 9781760112882
Fizz and the handbag dognapper. ISBN 9781760112899
(Ages: 7+) Highly recommended. Dogs. Police. Adventure. This wonderful series, full of fun and humour, with laugh out loud illustrations will tantalise younger readers. The first two in the series, Police dog tryouts and Police academy rescue showed the perseverance of Fizz, a fluffy lap dog and his efforts to achieve his dream, that of being a police dog.
Now that he has passed his training, he is about to take up his first position at the Sunnyvale City Police Station where his rival, Amadeus, is also employed, ready as always to bully and intimidate Fizz. Fizz and the show dog jewel thief has a jewel thief causing concern at the Pemberley Show Dog Trials, and Fizz is sent as an undercover dog. Much fun follows as Fizz must do something he has avoided all his life, that of being made ready for a show at the Gorgeous Groomers Show Dog Salon. Some great action ensues as our hero achieves his goal and even Amadeus steps in to help, working with Fizz rather than against him.
Fizz and the handbag dognapper has poor old Fizz yet again being an undercover dog, this time posing as a handbag dog in a celebrity's handbag, complete with tracking collar, ready to be dognapped and then followed by the police to attempt a rescue.
This series is perfect for the early reader, someone who has just managed chapter books. There are eight chapters in each book, each about five pages long with many funny illustrations to ease the way. The humour is infectious and will delight the readers and being about a dog will win hearts.
Fran Knight

What could it be? Exploring the imaginative world of shapes by Sally Fawcett

EK Books, 2016. ISBN 9781925335026
Picture book. Shapes. Western Australian teacher Sally Fawcett has created this wonderful picture book that explores the everyday 2D shapes that even very young children recognise from their early morning television experiences, encouraging the reader to find them not only in the stunning illustrations but also in their own environment.
Using repetitive text, rhyme and rhythm she invites the young reader to not only be more perceptive but also to use their imaginations, encouraging them to look more closely and think more carefully. There are circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, hexagons, ovals, and octagons everywhere, both natural and man-made, that, after sharing the book, makes the urge to go on a shape-walk around the home, classroom or school irresistible. Digital cameras make the 'collection' of shapes so easy these days and there are plenty of apps that will help you turn the photos into a captioned book written by the students that can be read again and again.
As well as that there are all sorts of ideas available at http://whatcoulditbe.ekbooks.com.au/ which include the opportunity for children to upload their own artworks.
This is another interactive book that invites input from the reader and takes them on a journey through their imagination. As well as being perfect for early childhood, it's also great for those learning English for the first time as they learn our words for shapes and colours but can then extend their observations at their own level.
Barbara Braxton