Reviews

Smek for President by Adam Rex

Bloomsbury, 2015. ISBN 9781408855461
(Age: 9+) Adam Rex's The True Meaning of Smekday was an outstanding success, a unique alien adventure that has become a Dreamworks animated movie. This much waited for sequel Smek for President sends Tip and J. Lo off on a very funny intergalactic adventure to New Boovworld. The Boov have settled on one of Saturn's moons after being banished from Earth. The Boov blame J. Lo for interfering with their takeover of Earth, so J. Lo and Tip take Slushious, a modified Chevy spaceship into outer space to make amends with the Boov.
Of course, things go awry, leading to many adventures, daring escapes and much hilarity. J. Lo is named Public Enemy Number One by Captain Smek who determines he will win the Boovs' first-ever presidential election if the little purple alien is captured. Along with the aid of a flying billboard named Bill, they travel through garbage chutes, are chased by spaceships, fight evil baddies and play an exciting game of Stickfish. There are underlying themes of acceptance, love and friendship.
Adam Rex's hilarious cartoons provide the reader with more laughs and insight into this unique world. To fully understand this extraterrestrial encounter, the alien language and alien races and characters The True Meaning of Smekday is a must-read before engaging with this second science-fiction novel.
Rhyllis Bignell

The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson

Text Publishing, 2014. ISBN 9782922182227
(Age: 14+) Highly recommended. Post traumatic stress disorder, Returned soldiers, Homelessness, Alcohol and drugs. I read this book in late 2013, and the more I think about it the more I see it as a class set for middle secondary, as it brings in many issues relevant to teens today. Seventeen year old Hayley is not your usual school kid, she often truants for no reason, and is surly and often uncooperative. So when she is sent to the student counsellor after seven detentions, she is forced to agree to see her for a session. The counsellor makes Hayley sit up and take notice with two pieces of information, one that her father has not been at work for months and the second that her stepmother has been in touch with the school.
She rushes off to find her father, and talks Finn into driving her. She finds the man at their home, his mother's house where they have finally settled after many years of wandering, trying to avoid her stepmother and the authorities.
She finds a broken man, one suffering from delusions and anxiety, taking to alcohol and drugs to ease the pain of his life, unable to hold down a job. Hayley watches out for him like a mother hen, but she needs to start to look out for herself.
We find that her father's experiences in war have left him suffering depression, anxiety and paranoia. He is unable to settle to things, sleeps badly, waking from nightmares for which alcohol is the only antidote. Both he and Hayley have rebuffed all attempts to help them and run away from Grace Hayley's stepmother. Some of his old army buddies call by and stay the weekend reminiscing about old times, but he has a psychotic episode and kicks them out.
The two characters are beautifully drawn; the one suffering from post traumatic stress, descending into paranoia and seclusion, while she does all she can to protect him. He sees Hayley as a young girl still, one needing a protective father who controls her moves. The author shows this vividly when the man takes a swipe at the even tempered Finn who has driven Hayley home. But Hayley too suffers trauma. She cannot see the past clearly, and we see the events through her eyes, and her recollection is muddy.
A crisis occurs in which both father and daughter see no way out but suicide: he goes to the cliff near the town, she has some pills that Grace has given her for sleeping. Both people are at the end of their tether, and readers will read on to see how the pair survives their ordeal.
This great read includes a number of topical themes; post traumatic stress disorder, truanting, homeless, effects of war, the role of step parents, the role of a school, and so on. With a class these themes would engender some great discussions, including the structure of a novel when the narrator is telling her version of the truth which does not entirely connect with reality and so is unreliable.
Fran Knight

Rain dance by Karen Wood

Allen & Unwin, 2014. ISBN 9781743316405
(Age: 12+) Recommended. Rural Australia, Romance. After losing their own farm, Holly's dad finds three months work at a station west of Gunnedah. She thinks it is the end of the earth, and her mood is not lightened after meeting Kaydon, the son of the owner, back from his private school for the holidays. His mother has used his photo to advertise the coming Easter ball with the proceeds going to the local drought relief. Our two main characters clash from the start, but readers will know that they will eventually find some common ground. The author has captured rural life in Australia well, bringing to the attention of mainly city readers, the problems faced by their rural counterparts. Talk of drought and fire, of losing farms to bankruptcy, coal seam gas exploration and carbon subsidies, sit alongside hints about how gay men cope in rural Australia, or how people learning new agricultural methods are received when taking these ideas back to the farms.
Kaydon's father has taken a partner, so offsetting the imminent losses due to drought, but the younger people are suspicious of this man who knows nothing about rural life and certainly nothing about farming. Their suspicions are confirmed when they find that he has links to the coal seam gas exploration company. The book gives an easily absorbed look at rural Australia and how kids like these cope with a different environment. It is a page turner, and follows the success of Jumping fences (2012).
Fran Knight

Tom Gates Absolutely Brilliant Big Book of Fun Stuff by L. Pichon

Scholastic, 2014. ISBN 9781743629444
Recommended for 8-10 year olds. Mr Fullerman has given each student in Tom's class a HUGE book to fill up with all kinds of things that don't fit in our normal-size books. One of the first tasks is to create crazy hairstyles for the upcoming school photos. Of course, there's a school photo disaster story, Mum loves to hang each dodgy one up on the walls, much to Tom's embarrassment. Luckily, he's ready with advice - scoffing messy food beforehand is not a good idea! He's delighted to discover dodgy school photos of Mum, Dad, Delia even Granddad. Even author Liz Pichon adds one of her own rather grumpy looking photos.
This brilliant big book is filled to the brim with puzzles, doodles, drawing tips and craft projects. Test your Tom Gates knowledge with a quiz, learn all about excuses for not handing in homework. Of course, there's a Biscuit Chat and a pyramid of Tom's top 5 biscuits and Granny Mavis's Fish Biscuit Recipe.
What a wonderful fun-filled activity book, a great present for a fan of the series.
Rhyllis Bignell

Poppy by Mary Hooper

Bloomsbury, 2014. ISBN 9781408827628
(Age: 12+) Highly recommended. War, World War One. Historical fiction like this is a treat to read, not only encompassing a page turner of a story but giving information in the background that is new to the reader. In this case the tale of a young girl joining the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) during World War One is riveting, not only for her story as a volunteer nurse, but also because it shows what happened to the wounded in France during the war.
Poppy, a parlourmaid in a country house, joins the VAD, with the help of a former teacher who pays her way. All the other women she meets in her training and while working are from higher class families who can afford to support their daughters when they volunteer. Poppy's letters back and forward to her brother Frederick on the Western Front, give us a view of the soldier's life at the front, while her work as a volunteer nurse shows what happens to the men who return wounded. Poppy works in a ward where some are not physically wounded enabling the reader to see the extent of wounds inflicted by war. The descriptions of the hospital ships coming into Southampton are astonishing. She feels for the wounded soldiers but has to come to grips with the mental wounds she must deal with. When her brother is one of the men sent back with a self inflicted wound, she must reappraise all her thoughts about courage and loyalty.
I thoroughly enjoyed this read, it was fresh and new, and even though I felt that I had read enough books about World War One to last me for a while, this one opened my eyes to bits about the war that I knew little about. Told in a refreshing almost pictorial style, the images thrown up are amazing. Poppy is a believable character and I look forward to the sequel when she arrives in Belgium, due out in May 2015.
Fran Knight

She is not invisible by Marcus Sedgwick

Indigo, 2014. ISBN 9781780621340
(Age: 13+) Highly recommended. Mystery. Blindness. 2015 YALSA Best fiction for Young adults. Telegraph's Top 10 YA books 2013, UKYA Awards 2014 Best Adventure.
When Laureth Peak's father's notebook turns up in New York, when he is supposed to be doing research in Austria, Laureth knows that something is wrong. Taking advantage of her mother's absence, she steals her credit card and flies off to New York, taking along her brother Benjamin, as her eyes. Laureth is blind but that doesn't stop her using all her senses and her intelligence in searching out the mystery of her missing father.
This story is highly successful on many fronts. The mystery surrounding the disappearance of Jack Peak is tightly plotted and Laureth and Benjamin have quite a few adventures as they retrace the steps that their father has taken. The determination and willpower of Laureth shines through, and Benjamin is a fabulous sidekick. The troubles surrounding Laureth's parents are also teased out subtly and his father's obsession with synchronicity, or coincidence, and the references to Einstein, Edgar Allan Poe and other authors are quite thought provoking. However it is the understanding that the reader gains about what it is like to be blind that makes this a standout novel.
Sedgwick is an award winning author whose skill shines out in this tightly and expertly written plot. A book trailer can be found here.
This would be an ideal class set or literature circle book as it has multiple themes that could engender discussion and widen the world view of its readers.
Pat Pledger

Anzac Ted by Belinda Landsberry

Exisle Publishing, 2014. ISBN 9781921966569
(Age: K-3) This is a must-have in your collection.

'Anzac Ted's a scary bear
And I can tell you why.
He's missing bits, his tummy splits,
He only has one eye.

His fur is torn and dirty
And he hasn't any clothes.
He doesn't hear with just one ear;
He should have two of those.

His head is kind of wobbly
And his legs are rather slow.
Perhaps it's due to one or two
Encounters with a foe!'

So begins an enchanting story-in-rhyme about a very special teddy bear - one that doesn't win prizes in the toy show and sometimes makes the other children cry when he turns up for Show'n'Tell. He isn't shiny and new and he can't change into something else and the other kids in the class just ridicule him. But Anzac Ted has a story - a story that no other child's toy has about why is he so old and torn and how brave he has been.
With a gentle touch on both text and illustration, newcomer Belinda Landsberry has crafted a delightful story about a bear who has seen better (or worse) days that is just perfect to introduce the youngest children to the stories of ANZAC and why there is such a focus on this special day on the calendar. With a clever shift of colour tone between now and then, there is a seamless transition between the two eras of Anzac Ted's life tied together with the love and reverence with which he has been passed down through the family and clearly will continue to be so. The unconditional love of the boy for his teddy is obvious and it remains constant despite the opinions of his peers. Perhaps if his story were told, Ted would have all the votes at the toy show. But really, some heroes don't want, need or get medals or accolades.
On my Pinterest board Remembering Gallipoli I've pinned over 150 titles of books about World War I for the primary-aged student and Anzac Ted is one of just a handful suitable for sharing and exploring with the K-2 brigade to
help them understand. It offers just a broad overview from a family perspective - Grandpa Jack leaves home and even though he's 21, his wife pops his childhood teddy in his case . "For luck." She said, "take Anzac Ted. I know he'll bring you home." And even though we think of soldiers as being big and brave and daring, there are times when they are lonely and afraid and Anzac Ted brings them comfort and courage. There are teachers' notes written by the author, herself a primary teacher.
Barbara Braxton

My happy sad Mummy by Michelle Vasiliu

Ill. by Lucia Masciullo. JoJo Publishing, 2014. ISBN 9780987358684
Highly recommended. Michelle Vasiliu's sensitively portrays the reality of living with bipolar disorder and the impact this has on family life. She draws from her personal experiences describing the up days of frenzied activity and the down days of crying, staying in bed or not moving from the couch. Mummy's moods and actions are seen through the eyes of her young daughter. When Mummy can't stop gardening, the little girl quietly falls asleep under a tree. She plays around the couch and seeks to make her mother smile by bringing an offering from the garden. Luckily, both mother and child are loved and supported by the husband-dad and the grandparents.
My happy sad Mummy is a valuable resource for families, teachers and health care providers, it explains mental illness in an empathetic and easy to understand manner. Lucia Masciullo's sensitive illustrations add a depth of understanding of the text. The front cover poignantly portrays the upbeat mum and the sad one with the little girl sitting in the fork of a tree caught in the middle.
Highly recommended for shared reading with families, classes and health care environments.
Rhyllis Bignell

Stormy night by Salina Yoon

Bloomsbury, 2015. ISBN 9781408862315
(Age: 3+) Recommended. Family, Storms, Being scared. When Bear and his toy bunny, Floppy cannot sleep because of the loud storm raging outside, Bear tells Floppy not to worry as his love will keep him safe, and he sings to him. They snuggle down into the warm soft bed, but when it begins to thunder, the two dive under the bed. Mama comes in to check on Bear and asks if she can stay the night, and then in comes Papa, also intent on staying in Bear's bed. Together they weather the storm, safely together, secure in the knowledge that they love each other and will keep each other safe. Papa tickles Bear's ear, Mama kisses his nose, and Bear reads a book to Floppy. Eventually the storm subsides, as all storms do, needing a rest like everyone else, and the Bear family goes to sleep as well.
Salina is well known for her Penguin books in which themes of friendship, love and togetherness figure, and this one about Bear is no different. The warmth and comfort of a loving family is tantamount to Bear feeling safe and secure. Each activity they do during the night reinforces their togetherness and the comfort given by them all to each other.
Salina Yoon's brief text tells enough and combined with her bold, black outlined illustrations, will be a plus for any young class talking about feeling safe, or about their fears and how to deal with them. The brightly coloured pages will entreat young eyes to search for the many things placed on the page redolent of family life, and the use of a variety of different spacings will encourage their looking closely at placement and framing. I love the use of white, with some pages full of colour and others more subdued. I love the framing of the window used several times in the book, and I particularly like the images of the family when Bear was young, made to look like and old photograph album.
Fran Knight

Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers

His Fair Assassin, bk 3. Andersen Press, 2014. ISBN 9781783441785
(Age: 15+) Recommended. Historical fantasy. Brittany - History. Romance. Assassination. YALSA 2015 Best Fiction for Young Adults. Annith has watched Ismae and Sybella leave the convent, going on their dark business to serve Mortain, the god of Death. She is distraught when she realises that the abbess has no intention of sending her out into the world. Instead she is being groomed to be the convent's Seeress, closeted in a tiny room and unable to go anywhere. Annith decides to leave the convent and travels across Brittany, but as she searches for answers she finds that everything she has believed in has been false. These secrets threaten not only her security but that of her country.
LaFevers is a master at weaving together a strange fantasy background with real historical facts and people. As with the first two books in the series, Grave mercy and Dark triumph, the reader begins to build up a picture of what life was like in Brittany in medieval times and what the politics of the times were. The plight of the young duchess and the events surrounding the war with France are expanded and brought to a conclusion in Mortal Heart.
Life in a convent is also vividly described and it is easy to empathise with Annith's dismay at the idea of being confined to a cell for the rest of her life. The old religious beliefs, centring on the god of death Mortain, and Annith's certainty that she is a daughter of Mortain add to the complexity of the plot, but also make for an interesting and challenging book.
While introducing entirely new ideas and a new romance, Mortal Heart also re-introduces characters from the previous books, so the reader of the series is pleased to find out how Ismae and Duval are getting along, as well as Sybella and Beast, but it Annith, with her devotion to Mortain, her steadfastness and determination to find the truth about the abbess and her machinations that dominates the plot.
I really enjoyed this series. The historical background made it stand out, and the adept writing, world building and great characterisation make it a stand out in the fantasy genre.
Pat Pledger

And the band played Waltzing Matilda by Eric Bogle

Duelgum, the story of the mother eel by Uncle Joe Kirk with Greer Casey and Sandi Harrold

Ill. by Sandi Harrold. Scholastic, 2015. ISBN 9781743623114
(Age: 4+) Recommended, Aboriginal themes, Australian animals, Brisbane. Duelgum is the name given by the Wakka Wakka people who live around Brisbane, to the eel which lives in a waterhole and makes its way to the sea to lays her eggs. The story told by Elder, Uncle Joe Kirk relates the tale told to the younger people of the community telling them of this amazing survival story of just how animal lives in the environment.
She lived happily in her waterhole, which provided shelter from the hot sun and plenty of food; yabbies, frog and shrimp to eat. Under he old log, she waited for the day she needed to move. And move she did, she climbed out of her waterhole, slithered over the bank and down into the river which took her to the sea. here she was met by many other eels doing the same thing. The females lay their eggs which become hundreds of fish like creatures. About a year later the females swim back to the river and find their way upstream to their mother's waterhole, there to wait until they too come to the sea to lay their eggs.
The naive illustrations suit the story as the sombre colours reflect the life of the eel in her waterhole, hidden from predators by her brown colouring.
A great story of our environment, of the many amazing animals that live in Australia, of the perseverance of just one of them to reproduce to keep the next generation going.
This particular animal helps keep the waterways clean, and so is a wonderful tale to tell in a class looking at environmental issues.
Fran Knight

The beastly pirates by John Kelly

Bloomsbury, 2015. ISBN 9781408849859
(Age: 4+) Recommended. Humour, Rhyming text, pirates. In poetic form, the story of the beastly pirates is told with pages filled with luminous illustrations revealing the most dangerous and bloodthirsty bunch of pirates imaginable.
Stories which curdle the blood are told about the most hardy of the lot, with each stanza revealing the life of one nasty creature known to each of the group gathered at the inn. Readers will instantly recognise the bravado of each pirate as they try to outdo the story before. So we have tales of Captain Death, the scariest pirate of them all, but outdone by Admiral Flea, so small that he could kill you with his cutlass from beneath, or Captain Snapper who liked to eat pirates, or Kusher Kraken with his multiplicity of legs to wrap around pirates he found on board.
Each tale is designed to amuse and inform, as children will learn many new seafaring words, and rhymes that make them laugh.
I laughed out loud at the tale of Krusher Kraken with his legs doing so many different things, and Captain Blimp so large they were able to make a pie of him for all to eat.
But all are frightened when the worst happens and a funny twist has their fearsomeness totally undermined.
As a story to read aloud, a tale to be part of a unit about pirates, a cute way to introduce rhyming words, or cooking and seafaring words, this book is a treat. It would work really well as a model for children's writing.
Children will love finding the array of piratey things in the wonderfully bold illustrations, and look for clues about their bravery.
Fran Knight

Get Happy by Mary Amato

Egmont, 2014. ISBN 9781606845226
(Age: 13+) Adolescent. Humour. Music. Coming of age. 16 year old budding song writer Minerva really wants a ukulele for her birthday, but her mother buys her an ugly designer jumper, when she really was only interested in vintage clothes. She decides to work at the Get Happy Company that specialised in parties for children with her friend Fin to raise money to pay for the ukulele, but discovers that wearing a hideous mermaid costume doesn't always mean that the kids are entertained. Meanwhile the father who had abandoned her when she was two has sent a beautiful birthday present and it appears that her mother has been keeping secrets about him for years.
As Minerva negotiates the problems associated with her mother, does her best to entertain unlikeable children at birthday parties and makes new friends, the reader is carried along by her narrative, which is often very humorous. She develops as a person as she discovers the father that she has not had any contact with, and begins to understand the outcomes of the depth of her mother's love.
All the characters are really well developed. Fin is a fantastic friend, Hayes is interesting and the parents are well rounded individuals that the reader feels they know.
Although the story is light hearted and very easy to read, some big themes are handled here. The plight of a child in a single parent family, the fear of a mother losing her child and the desire of an estranged father to get to know his daughter are all played out against a realistic background.
Overall, this was an enjoyable read; a feel good book that is sure to raise the spirits of its readers.
Pat Pledger

Don't Look Back by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Disney-Hyperion, 2014. ISBN 9781423175124
(Age: 16+) Recommended. Mystery and suspense. Romance. Samantha is found by the side of the road, scratches over her arms and legs and her clothes torn. When she wakes up in hospital, after having been missing for four days, she discovers that she has lost her memory and that her best friend, Cassie has disappeared. Sam is determined to regain her memory, and she is desperate to find out what has happened to Cassie after her body was recovered from the lake.
Armentrout keeps up the tension and suspense and Sam narrates her story in the first person. Going back to school with no memories of what she was like proves to be a trial for Sam. Was she really as nasty as the mean girls who were supposed to be her friends? What were the secrets that her so called boyfriend Del was keeping from her? Why was she with him when Carson was gorgeous and seemed to understand her so well? But most of all what had happened between her and Cassie. Could she be the person who murdered her?
In Don't look back, Sam has the opportunity to remake the person that she has been. She is given a second chance and can try to be a better person, choosing friends who care for her and a boyfriend who wouldn't hurt her by showing totally inappropriate pictures of her on the internet. She can begin to value people for their actions and not their wealth. However she is stubborn about trying to find who killed Cassie, even though her family and counsellors advise her against putting herself through the agony of reliving what has happened to her.
There are enough twists and turns and unexpected events to keep even the experienced reader of mysteries happy and the narrative flows along smoothly, exposing the characters' flaws and strengths as the pressure builds to a climax. A sex scene and references to sexual activity may make it more suitable for older teens.
Pat Pledger