Library

Book Week

Next week the winners of the CBCA Awards will be announced. As you are probably aware the judging was postponed this year. Overall, there are wonderful books in both the Younger Readers and Older Reader categories that that will appeal to all ages.

Young Readers

Rather than have a live visit this year, we are fortunate to be hosting a Zoom lesson for Yr 8 with one of the authors, Tristan Bancks.

His novel, Detention, is on the Younger Readers list. This begins with a breakout from a refugee camp. Young Sima, just wants a peaceful life in a safe place. In the camp, with deportation threatening the next morning, the desperate refugees break out. When they make their escape, a guard raises the alarm. In the confusion, Sima loses her parents. Her dad told her to run, so she does. She hides in a school. Triggering a lockdown. This is a fast- paced adventure and a compelling storyline. Tristan did much research for this thrilling novel. He is an entertaining speaker and will be familiar to our students through many of his other books, Two Wolves and The Fall are very popular.

Also popular in the Younger Readers category is The Dog Runner by Bree MacDibble which is a dystopian journey through country Victoria.   

The Wave by Pip Harry is a verse novel with three alternating narrators. A wonderful introduction to this genre.

The Glimme is high fantasy by Emily Rodda and Marc McBride. The young hero is kidnapped and has to solve a mystery to return to his world.

Catch a Falling Star by Meg McKinlay focuses on the 1979 Skylab falling to earth over Australia. This is based on a real historical event but it is just the background for this coming of age novel. This novel reveals interesting changes in our attitude to space, however the real story is in the family relationships.

Older Readers 

The Boy Who Steals Houses by CG Drew. This book is an insight into the life of a homeless adolescent, who in his longing for a home of his own, breaks into houses and lives there while the occupants are absent. He also protects an older sibling who is autistic. He is happily ensconced in his latest home when the family suddenly arrive back. They are a large and unruly bunch and each assumes he is a friend of one of their sibling. While dealing with difficult issues this is a book filled with humour and charm and has proved popular among our readers.

How it Feels to Float by Helen Fox is very a serious and sensitive novel which deals with the effects of a parent’s suicide among other sensitive issues.  

Ghost Bird by Lisa Fuller takes us to a small country town where twins Stacey and Laney are in Yr 10 and share a special bond. When Laney goes missing in mysterious circumstances Stace starts having dreams that can only have come from her sister. She must investigate while negotiating the difficult intersections past and present of Aboriginal lives in a small country. This is a gripping read.

When the Ground is Hard by Malla Nunn transports us to Swaziland in the 1960s. The introduction to the main character, Adele, is on a school bus for a four hour journey back to boarding school, a scene at once familiar and incredible exotic. Formerly she had been one of the two top girls, queens of the school, but her public dumping in front of a busload of students changes her status dramatically. This is an amazing book that transports us into a world of the past and allows us to understand (from the inside) the problems of people in a small African country who have had their boundaries both physically and mentally redrawn by “gentlemen“ in offices far away marking boundaries on a map.

Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte is high fantasy in another realm. A world ruled by four Queens, one from each quadrant. Each represents one of the four realms that make up the world, their function is to maintain its balance and ensure peace and posterity. When one of the queens is assassinated, the kingdom is in danger.

This is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield is set in a small country town with the Yr 10 protagonist (can we call him a hero?)  in a dysfunctional family. This is a powerful story about  breaking a cycle of abuse and poverty. Issues of social justice abound. A powerful and gripping YA novel.

All in all a rich and diverse collection that speaks well of the state of children’s literature in Australia.

Bronwyn Curtis 
Coordinator of Libraries
bcurtis@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9968 9839