A and C Black Publishers, 2011. ISBN 978 1 4081 2835 0. The Pirate Queen is a short novel aimed at readers age 8 to
10. Pirate stories always seem to be aimed at boys but girls and
boys alike will enjoy this tale of pirates and treasure. It is
written by Terry Deary, author of the Horrible Histories
series and uses fact and fiction to create a mini history lesson and
an adventurous tale.
The Pirate Queen is Grace O'Malley, an Irish pirate who took over
from her Dad. The story is told from the point of view of her
daughter, Catherine. Catherine wants to be just like her ma so
sneaks on board. She is soon discovered and rather than get in
trouble she climbs the mast. It is here Catherine sees another ship
and the Pirate Queen and her crew attack and rob it. Unfortunately
another ship comes along and they are stopped. Catherine remembers a
story her ma always tells and jumps to rescue her. Will she be
successful or will Catherine be the reason Grace O'Malley is finally
captured and punished by the Queen of England?
All young readers will enjoy this quick moving tale of a feared
pirate and the daughter who loves her.
Kylie Kempster
Wish me dead by Helen Grant
Penguin, 2011. ISBN: 978-0-141-33770-8.
(Age 15+) 'It all started with a little wooden box in the old
witch's house hidden away in the middle of the forest. I didn't mean
the first one, it was only meant to be a bit of fun. I didn't mean
for anyone to get hurt. I wished that Klara Klein would die and it
happened. I wished for the local busybody who destroyed my family to
die and it happened. With each wish I make the body count increases
due to the wishes I make and my wishes alone.'
For shy Steffi Nett what started as a bit of fun with her friends
has turned into something deadly. One night Steffi and her friends
decide to go to the town's haunted house which was believed to be
the home of a witch and try out the myth of putting hexes on people.
After the first wish comes true, the group of friends are eager to
find out if other wishes can be realized. With the death rate
increasing with each wish made, is it possible that the wishes could
be used for good and possible to save a life?
Helen Grant's story is about a shy girl who is too scared to speak
up to other people. This leads to her parents being able to map out
her future for her without a say or her friends being able to push
their weight around and making Steffi do what they want her to do.
Although the pace of the story was slow at the start, I found the
rest of the book had a fast flowing storyline and I found it hard to
put the book down. I would recommend this book for older readers as
some younger reader may find parts of the book upsetting. An example
that would upset younger readers would be the details of the deaths
of Klara Klein and the local busybody. I enjoyed being able to
follow the storyline along and working out the mystery but at the
same time I was taken by surprise at times as I didn't expect
certain turns in the plot. After reading Wish Me Dead I
would like to read other novels from the same author as I enjoyed
the style of mystery this author was able to put in her book.
Lauren Pfeiffer (Student)
Classic Australian poems ed. by Christopher Cheng
Random House, 2011. ISBN 978 1 74275 3621.
Christopher Cheng invites his readers to enjoy, recite, laugh and be
moved by the poetry presented in this compilation from the late
Nineteenth and turn of the Twentieth Centuries. Cheng fondly recalls
happy childhood moments spent enjoying and studying these favorites
and I concurred with him before applauding his choices.
My initial impression was that Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson
featured over prominently. I also pondered whether their depiction
of dour, pioneering, outback battlers was a true reflection of a
population which at the time was confined mainly to the Eastern
coast of the nation. It was not long however before I was nodding
assent and acknowledging how important the bush narrative is for a
nation which for too long has placed excessive emphasis on military
history and sporting achievement.
Perpetuating the romance of rural living and celebrating lairish
defiance of disaster and hardship might be fraudulent for the vast
majority of us who have never experienced it, but it's a heritage
with which Cheng invites us to identify, at least for the time it
takes to read and enjoy the poetry.
The only criticism I have with this book is that it was confined to
'Classic Poems', hence the aforesaid poets dominate with Henry
Kendall and C.J. Dennis whilst relatively modern poets like Bruce
Dawe don't feature. For what it's worth, some of the most meaningful
verse in my experience has come from contemporary popular music and
I know that young people genuinely engage with and share this
textual form. If poetry compilers continue to ignore this verse,
students will never see Lawson or Dennis because they will not have
opened books to find Archie Roach, Paul Kelly Missy Higgins or Kasey
C.
Rob Welsh
Decoding Hayley Williams by Alana Wulf
Random House, 2011. ISBN 978 1 74275 2921.
(Age: 12+) Decoding Hayley Williams is the unauthorised
guide to the lead singer of the band Paramore. It gives statistics
on her life, interesting quotes and amazing colour photographs
chronicling her career. Fans of Paramore will enjoy reading this
book and discovering how the band started, how they changed band
members and all other career highlights. I would recommend this to
readers aged 12 and over and it is aimed more at girls as it
discusses her fashion and style as well as details about the band.
There is a lot of text to read and most of the pictures are of
Hayley. There is only one negative thing about purchasing this book
and that is whether or not you have Paramore fans who will want to
read it or general music fans who like to read this information
style biography. It would be good to have in school libraries for an
example of biography writing rather than always looking at the lives
of people who are no longer with us or are sporting heroes.
Kylie Kempster
Look, A BOOK! by Libby Gleeson and Freya Blackwood
Little Hare, 2011. ISBN 9781921541803.
Recommended. Unbeknownst to her, the book falls from the lady's bag
as she pushes her shopping trolley towards home, a ramshackle old
house in a poorer area of town. It lies in the dust until two
children come along and discover it. And it is then their REAL
discoveries begin As they perch on top of the old outhouse to read
it, their dreary, drab world comes alive through the magic of the
words and their imaginations. But, the greatest impact is when they
return it to the lady . . . the last page sums up the
power of story in a way that words cannot.
This is a true collaboration between author and illustrator that
will become a classic - it needs to be shared. In my opinion, I have
just seen the winner of the CBCA Picture Book of the Year, 2012.
What more can be said?
Barbara Braxton
The Women of the Cousins' War. The Duchess, the Queen, and the King's Mother by Philippa Gregory
Simon and Schuster, 2011, ISBN 9780857201775.
(Age: Senior students) Recommended. This work is a non-fiction
companion volume to Philippa Gregory's fictional Cousins' War series
set between 1415 to 1509 and during the Wars of the Roses in
England. The three women who feature in that series, Jacquetta of
Luxembourg, Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort, all became
influential, respected and feared despite women having few legal,
political and dynastic rights at that time. Jacquetta was the
matriarch of the powerful Woodville family and friend of Margaret of
Anjou, wife of Henry IV. Elizabeth Woodville was her daughter and
wife of Henry's successor, Edward IV. Margaret Beaufort was a
descendent of Edward III and the mother of Henry VII, the first
Tudor king. This book is in part a discussion about the difference
between fiction and history; the author, Philippa Gregory discusses
each, and ultimately claims that there are more similarities between
them than are usually accepted. Historians, she claims, work from
established facts to speculate about character, motive and reactions
just as the best writers of historical fiction do. The three essays
that follow, by Gregory and two professional historians, David
Baldwin and Michael Jones, are examinations of the historical
evidence about the three women. The essay by Michael Jones on
Margaret Beaufort is particularly interesting in its use of primary
sources to reach conclusions about Margaret's life and character.
Some of the claims made in relation to each of the three women could
be debatable, but the book is very readable. It contains a map of
battles, a dynastic chart of the York and Lancaster families
(fortunately), illustrations and an extensive bibliography.
Jenny Hamilton
Ripley's believe it or not: Special edition 2012
Scholastic, 2011. ISBN 9780545329750.
(Age 8+) Recommended. After a fascinating introduction to Ripley,
the reader is taken on a fabulous journey of bite size pieces of
information with intriguing photos of some of the strangest things
in the world. It is a book that can be dipped into; no matter what
page you turn to, there is a cluster of amazing facts.
It is divided into different chapters that look at different strange
and wonderful things. Wish you were here has facts about
Mouse Drop Soup and unusual things happening around the world. Nothing
ventured, nothing gained looks at feats like a Chinese
hairdresser cutting hair while he stands on his head and a Dutch
illusionist levitating in front of a crowd. Wonderfully weird
examines flying fish, abnormal creatures and eerie inventions. Get
creative has funky inventions and there are weird and
wonderful animals in Strange Creatures. The photos are
irresistible and the reader just has to read the caption to find out
about them.
This volume is fantastic fun for the whole family and will provide
hours of amusement for everyone reading from cover to cover or just
casually picking it up. It is also a book that is certain to appeal
to reluctant readers.
Pat Pledger
I want my hat back by Jon Klassen
Walker Books, 2011. ISBN 978 1 4063 3683 2.
Picture book. Animals. Bear want his hat back and asks many of the
animals in his area if they have seen his hat. On each page he asks
the same question, 'Have you seen my hat?', and usually gets a
similar reply, and then responds, Thank you anyway. This happens
each time he directs the question to the fox, frog, turtle and
snake, but when the asks the rabbit he has a much more complete
response, giving far more detail. Watching listeners will notice too
that the rabbit has a red hat on its head. The bear continues his
search, and when he asks the deer, the animal asks him to describe
the garment and in so doing the bear realises just where he has seen
his hat and returns to retrieve it. A lovely twist at the end will
have the listeners laughing out loud at what the bear does.
A funny story, the humour builds with each page, culminating on the
page that the bear realises where his hat is. What happens after
this is sure to draw smiles and laughs as the bear takes action. A
seemingly simple tale, listeners and readers will enjoy the simple
one lines as the bar asks the questions, and the fulsome replies by
the guilty party. The simple but elegant illustrations add humour as
the bland bear just asks his questions and listens to the responses.
Fran Knight
The fear by Charlie Higson
Penguin, 2011 ISBN 9780 14 132505 7
(Ages: 15+) Dystopia. The third in the series beginning with The
enemy, where all adults in the world die from some horrible
disease, leaving teens under 15 or so to fend for themselves, is
bloodthirsty and violent from beginning to end. The enemy set the
premise with groups of children aggregating together, forming small
pockets of survivors in a London beset with bloody war between
similar groups. Some hole themselves up in supermarkets, holding on
to their realm for the food, barricading themselves in against
attack, some rake over the museums (with access to weapons) and
Buckingham Palace is the target of many. All groups develop various
forms of loose organisation, mainly autocratic. It reads like an
extension of Lord of the flies, where the kids go on unrescued,
combined with the appalling future in The road.
In this book, Dognuts, the leader of a small group who have taken
over the Tower of London as their patch, leads a smaller cohort to
Buckingham Palace to find out what happened to another small group
led by Brooke, who Dognuts admires. Along the way they meet several
other cohorts of children surviving as best they can against the
sickos, the adults who have survived the disease but are horribly
disfigured and have a taste for children. One particularly nasty
sequence involves a huge sicko who takes children as his pets,
eventually killing and eating them.
This is a violent and blood thirsty story of survival, made more
interesting because of the angst that exists between the leaders of
each group as they vie for supremacy. Fans can find out more
information from the website,
and await the fourth in the series, The sacrifice, due out
in 2012. But I can imagine that many will have problems with these
books because of the sustained violence. Higson also writes the
series, Young Bond, which has the young James Bond embroiled
in all sorts of adventures.
Fran Knight
Pan's Whisper by Sue Lawson
Black Dog Books, 2011.
(Age: 12+) Pan (real name is Pandora) is put into yet another foster
home. She is a teenage rebel who hates everything and doesn't trust
anyone. She keeps having strange flashbacks and bits of memory
floating into her mind, but she can't make sense of them. When she
starts at a new school, she instantly becomes an outsider and a
freak, to everyone but Hunter, a kind and charismatic boy who seems
to understand her. But is he worth breaking her ultimate rule:
'Never trust anyone'? Pan's Whisper is written pretty well and overall it's an
interesting book. I think the novel would lose some of its appeal
the second time around though because of the numerous plot twists
and mysteries involving the memories. The best feature of this book
is that it has a good pace, convincing dialogue, and interesting
characters.
This is a good read for a lazy afternoon, but it'll struggle to
engage readers a second time around.
I recommend this book.
Rebecca Adams (Student)
No return : Captain Scott's race to the pole by Peter Gouldthorpe
Lothian, 2011.
(Ages: 9+) Warmly recommended. Non Fiction. History. The story of
Captain Scott and his journey through the Antarctic to be the first
to reach the South Pole makes fascinating reading as beset by all
sorts of problems, the small group perished, making their names
synonymous with heroism and courage in exploration. Gouldthorpe has
written an excellent overview of the man himself, lured to this part
of the world by previous explorations and then wanting to be the
first to reach the South Pole, on hearing of a Norwegian expedition
setting out as well in 1909.
The voyage from England to Melbourne, then the treacherous voyage
across the Southern Ocean to Cape Evans in Force 10 gales, made them
even more determined. They arrived with three motor sleds, one of
which sank into the ice almost immediately, while one of the 59 men
was almost lost to a pod of killer whales when he inadvertantly
hopped across ice flows coming to a dead end. The men built a hut
and stored their provision to wait out the Antarctic winter before
attempting the walk to the pole in spring. The awful tale of the
trip follows, with the main group dying trying to return after
finding that the Norwegian team had arrived before them.
Two detailed maps are included and the illustrations give a bitingly
cold feel to the story, as we see the men and their horses and
huskies with all their equipment, trudge off. This is an
amazing story told with sufficient detail and superb illustrations
to make it available to a wide audience.
Fran Knight
The filth licker by Cristy Burne
Ill. by Siku. Frances Lincoln Children's Books, 2011. ISBN
9781847801364.
(Ages 8-12) Recommended. This is the second title in the Takeshita
Demons series featuring Miku Takeshita, a young Japanese girl now
living in London. It is the night before school camp, and Miku has a
bad feeling. Her best friend Cait is acting strangely, and there's
been a nasty smell around which seems to be getting stronger each
day. So on the way to camp, when a boy from her class suddenly
breaks out in a stinking rash which seems to be causing his skin to
rot, Miku knows there are Japanese demons at work. Her fears prove
true when a strange wind blows out their bonfire, and Miku knows
they have awakened a new evil. Now Miku must decide whether to trust
the advice of the Filth Licker who lives in the boys' toilets, and
trek through the dark forest in the middle of the night to confront
the demon before it reaches the camp. But which of her friends can
she trust when there is a shape-shifter at work? And what form will
the evil take on? And why is the food at camp so disgusting?
A range of wonderful demons and monsters from Japanese mythology are
introduced to the reader in a humorous and sometimes slightly
repulsive story which has enough suspense to keep you turning the
pages. Not too frightening for young readers, filled with likeable
characters and great Manga style illustrations.
Donella Reed
BOM! went the bear by Nicki Greenberg
Allen and Unwin, 2011, ISBN 9781 74237 671 4
(Ages 4+) Picture book. Bear is proud of his ability with his drum
and loudly plays it around the forest, but when some of the other
animals come along displaying their talents with various
instruments, bear becomes more and more put out, until he walks off
again banging his own drum, leaving the other animals behind him.
Each double page has another animal or group of animals playing a
musical instrument, the pages filled with lively colourful
illustrations, sure to entice younger readers. One page has a group
of frogs playing the xylophone, with the words, Frogs play the
xylophone, Plank, plunk, plink, while the drawings show several
frogs hopping across a xylophone in some disarray, another has the
Lizard on a zither with a zink - a zink zink, with a hapless lizard
trying to play this uncommon instrument. Each double page
invites the reader to join with the rhyming lines, and learn from
the illustrations what these instruments are.
All in all a fun filled book with plenty to laugh about in the
illustrations and rhymes, this book will be well used in pre school
and early childhood groups where the teacher encourages students to
join in. And watch out for the changes in bear's face as he sees
what is happening around him. I just love his confident look on the
first page, becoming less and less confident as the pages are
turned.
Fran Knight
The Not-So-Goblin Boy by Ezekiel Kwaymullina
Walker Books, 2011. ISBN 978 1 921720 15 4.
(Age: 10+) The Not-So-Goblin Boy is well and truly aimed at
kids but especially boys! As an adult, I kept thinking 'eww' and
'gross' as I read the story of Samuel, the only human in a goblin
world, because of all the talk about farts. How do goblins greet
each other? They fart! How to they rob each other? They fart! What
are they most proud of? Their farts! Goblins are also expected to be
sneaky, lie and are generally gross. Unfortunately for me, the more
I read it, the more I enjoyed it and started giggling at the
different events and comments.
As the only human in this world, Samuel struggles to prove himself
as a good goblin and make his parents proud. He uncovers secrets
about his parents and is 'kidnapped' by goblin pirates. All of a
sudden, he is facing a future where he can actually be himself - a
human - in a dangerous goblin world whose leader is called The Grand
Stinker. He is enlisted to help find out who is the spy in the
Goblin World but will they be able to uncover the truth in time?
Boys aged 10+ will thoroughly enjoy the 'grossness' that is the
world of goblins but the author (a young Indigenous author,
excellent for our children to be exposed to) has also managed to
create a whole new world with some amazing inventions. One of the
ways to prove yourself a good goblin is to invent crazy machines
like goggles that detect radiation, bracelets that make you teleport
and the fart forcer that makes anyone you point at, fart
uncontrollably (of course)!
Kylie Kempster
Bloodlines by Richelle Mead
Penguin, 2011. ISBN 978-1-921518-881. Bloodlines by Richelle Mead is a novel for teens who love
fantasy and mystery. This novel is a spin off from the Vampire
Academy series so any reader who likes those will also like these.
This is also a series of novels; it is possible to read this book by
itself without reading the other novels but it's probably most
recommended to read the others as it probably might make more sense.
The main character, Sydney Sage is chosen to take up an alchemist
role in Palm Springs, California to protect a Vampire Princess, Jill
Dragomir, a Moroi, who is a type of vampire that is basically like a
human except the need for blood every now and again. She is fearful
of harm from rogue vampire assassins while her sister (Queen of the
Moroi, Lissa Dragomir) changes some laws. Sydney is woken from her
bed in the middle of the night, scared that she would have to go to
a re-education centre and finds herself being placed under strict
eyes in Palm Springs for a chance to prove herself and regain
the trust of her mentors, the Alchemists, after a situation that
could have cost Sydney the trust of the Alchemists with Rose
Hathaway, a dhampir, one of the protectors of the Moroi.
After being placed in the desert under the strict eye of Keith
(another Alchemist) it is now Sydney's duty to protect Jill from any
danger that befalls her, while re-doing year 12 at Amberwood Prep
school (being close to and protecting 15 year old Jill gets easier
when she's attending her freshman year at Amberwood).
The ending of this novel is wrapped in a huge mystery that will
affect both Keith and Sydney plus not to mention all the Alchemists.
This was a brilliantly plotted novel with mysterious turns in all
the right places.
Sarah Filkin (Student)
