It’s a challenge to tackle childhood distress and the dangers of a disenfranchised populace through humorous fantasy, Irish folklore, and wrestling references, but Dave Rudden manages to pull it off with sensitivity and panache.
This is a story about searching for life, and finding the meaning of life instead. What do we miss when we focus too hard on outcomes rather than being curious and appreciating what is in front of us? What does it mean to get lost, and be found? With the absence of little space creatures in our immediate vicinity, what would it take to shake up our own malaise?
At first contact with this book, you are met with Tang’s soulfully explosive illustrations of stars complemented by a gorgeous textured hardcover with embossed and debossed text and designs, inviting your hand to trail over the shapes. It only gets better from there, as each page reveals a smorgasbord of stories brought to life in full colour, with cut-out like human figures against the softness of galaxies and magical sweeps of mythological reconstructions.
In an isolated land with a hidden history, a crocodile goddess swirls through the spirit world, gifting everyone a magic skill in teenagerhood. From super speed to teleportation to invisibility; everyone has been gifted a power, except Somadina and her twin brother Jayaike that is. When their powers finally arrive they embody a terrifying pair of forces that leads to Jayaike’s disappearance and Somadina bringing together an unexpected group of people to save him.
When bad news is everywhere and we feel helpless in the face of injustice, this book reminds us of the rights we have, who fought for us to have them, and how they did it.
This cloth-bound collection of 366 funny poems, one for every day of the year, opens with a thoughtful love letter to the joy of reading. The exuberant energy echoes through the selection which includes poems by Margaret Mahy, Valerie Bloom, Wendy Cope, Ogden Nash, Christina Rosetti and Benjamin Zephaniah, amongst others.
What do you see when you look up at the clouds? Erin sees a world of creatures, from cheeky cats to roaring dragons. When Erin falls ill and has to stay in the hospital for a while, at first she finds solace in her cloud babies. And her friends in the children’s ward love them too! But after returning to school, where nobody seems to appreciate her magical friends, she starts ignoring them. Cloud babies aren’t for big kids, right?
How often do you get to visit a place where three oceans meet? Sejal is excited to see ‘the end of the world’ for herself, located at the southernmost tip of India. But she soon realises that the journey she makes with her Pati and her mother is just as magical as the final destination.
Readers of Fred: Wizard in Training will be familiar with the unusual time Fred’s been having recently, what with the whole winning-a-magic-contest incident. Everyone is treating him like a hero, which would be great if he was any good at magic when under pressure. On the plus side, he now has weekly teatimes with Merlin, who is making him realise he isn’t too bad at magic–and life–after all. But just when he’s ready to get to work, a mystery lands in his lap.
In You’re A Star, Lolo we join Lolo, her Mama, and her Gogo, on four adventures, which include a battle of wills in the kitchen, a gardening project gone awry, a spooky night at home, and a big trip with some unexpected bumps in the road. Through Lolo, writer/illustrator Niki Daly shows us how obstacles big and small can be overcome with some creative thinking, and a little help from the right people.
