Tatiara

Written and Illustrated by Jo Oliver

New Frontier Publishing. Australian, Picture Book. Hardcover RRP $24.95

This book tells the story of a friendship between a young girl and an injured seal she names Tatiara.

The girl wears a back brace and is unable to swim in the ocean. She watches Tatiara, who has come to the quiet waters of the bay to heal. The healing ocean reaches out to include the girl, through her relationship with Tatiara. When her brace is removed, the girl can finally swim in the bay with the seal.

Extensive use of blue and brown brings to life the quiet water of the bay, the waves the whales ride and the sepia tinge of history.

Tatiana is set around the Tathra Wharf, an area I know well. The words and illustrations evoke a wonderfully accurate sense of place. This is a safe haven:

 The wharf shelters from the Great Southern Ocean in the crook of the bay’s arm.

The text also contains a gentle conservation message about whaling, once common in the area:

It’s been forty years since they were hunted here. There were only one hundred left before they were protected.

A truly beautiful book.

Skin Deep

by Laura Jarratt

Hardie Grant Egmont. Young Adult. Paperback RRP $22.95

Reviewer - Barbara Brown

Skin Deep’s byline - Ugly people don’t have feelings – explains the story behind this book. I felt sad and angry at the beginning but then my emotions were taken on a trek up and down hills and valleys until my journey ended in the last pages. This is a book I couldn’t put down.

Jenna is a fourteen year old who was disfigured in the car crash which killed her best friend. She has been transformed from an average pretty girl to a person that children gawk at and adults try not to notice. A person that is stared at for all the wrong reasons.

After several months of staying at home recovering, Jenna returns to school but not life as she knew it. People are mean and treat her like a freak. She retreats further into her own world and it looks like she will never come out.

But then Ryan arrives. A sixteen year old who travels the waterways on a long boat living with his mother. Not usually accepted in the villages and towns, Ryan has dealt with hatred and stares all his life. He hopes this place will be different as he tries to integrate. He is honest and easily gets his first paid job, which he loves. His mother said they may stay longer in this lovely place. Ryan hopes so.

Ryan shows Jenna how to ignore and believe in herself. Jenna shows Ryan how to love. Everything seems perfect. Jenna learns to cope with the stares and Ryan learns to cope with his mother’s mood swings.

But then a body is found and all eyes look towards the travelling boy.

Skin Deep encourages you to guess. I thought I knew the murderer … but I was wrong. A book I would like to see on the big screen.

http://www.laurajarratt.com/

Sounds Spooky

by Christopher Cheng, Illustrated by Sarah Davis

Random House Australia. Australian, Picture Book. Hardcover RRP $19.95

Reviewed by Sandy Fussell

In a creaky old house, a ghost child hears strange, scary noises.

Whistling wind through the treesSqueaking bats flying pastKnocking noises at my window…

When the door creaks the word winds itself around the gargoyles.
I am not scared, the ghost girl whispers as the noises grow closer

              thumping, clicking, whirring, whispering

At the same time, a group of children are nervously making their way through the house.

Plinketty Plunketty Plonk Plink Plunk Twang!

When the children and the ghost girl finally meet, everyone is frightened and everyone insists they are not scared. The ironic humour is immediately evident in the facial expressions.

The text is a celebration of sound and perfect for reading aloud and encouraging young readers and listeners to play with onomatopoeias.

One look at the cover and a flip to the credits page sets the illustration tone. This is a visually stunning book. Go to the Random House Australia web site and look for yourself http://www.randomhouse.com.au/books/christopher-cheng/sounds-spooky-9781864718799.aspx. The ghost girl glows with a soft fey luminescence. The use of midnight blues and purples creates a darkness that is deeper than black and twice as magical.

Recommended for reading out loud, playing with words and of course, Halloween.

http://www.chrischeng.com/
http://www.sarahdavisillustration.com/

6

by Karen Tayleur

black dog books. Australian, Young Adult. Paperback, RRP $18.99

An accident. Six people, five seatbelts, one car. The conclusion seems forgone. But the big question is who of the six individuals whose only common link is the school they attend. Four are in relationships. Two are football jocks. Two are best friends. One is the party boy. One is the school brain. In their final year at school, they are looking forward to the Year 12 Formal.

First, Tayleur takes us back several months when these six individuals have no interaction with each other. What seems to be a totally random event, entwines all six together in secrets and lies.

Each character tells their own story of how they end up in that car on that night. Everyone has their reasons. Some are innocent yet others are conspired and selfish. It doesn’t matter, the outcome is going to be the same.

This plot is clever, gripping and sucks you right in. Or should I say plots. I felt compelled to read through to the end as quickly as I could, … chasing from one ‘light bulb’ moment to the next, until finally I knew the answers. I never knew what was coming… the shocks are plentiful. Do not assume anything.

Karen Tayleur’s novels. Chasing Boys was reviewed in Issue 2 of The Reading Stack, Hostage reviewed in October 2009 and Halloween in Christmas Hills (The Legend of Stingy Jack) reviewed in October 2009.

http://karentayleur.com/

Pig Boy

by J C Burke

Woolshed Press. Australian, Young Adult. Paperback RRP $18.95

Pig Boy is a very confronting book. While I was reading it, a bullied school boy in the United States walked into his classroom and opened fire. It was eerily resonant. Could Damon Styles’ end up like this boy in the US?

Damon Styles is in his last year at school in the small country town of Strathven, where everybody knows everybody’s business. Damon has been bullied his whole high school life and taunted with the nickname of Damoink. He is intelligent but fat. He wins literary awards but the Principal never acknowledges him. He loves playing violent on-line video games but has trouble shooting a real weapon. He has anger issues with nearly the whole town.

Could he kill for revenge?

Damon’s eighteenth birthday starts badly and by lunchtime he has been expelled from school. What happens next will change Damon’s life. What did Damon stumble upon? And is there someone who knows what Damon saw?  

With paranoia setting in, Damon comes up with a plan. He knows what he has to do. First, he needs to make a list.

                TO-DO LIST

·         Google for info

·         Check newspapers etc

·         Get a padlock

·         Look into renewing firearms licence – book safety course, call rifle club re rejoining and course availability

·         Visit Pigman about a job

With no-one to turn to and no-one to trust, Damon is forced to take matters into his own hands.  

But when his careful planning begins to unravel, there is someone unexpected there to help him after all.

Pig Boy is a riveting read. The first half of the book builds Damon’s character looking back at what he has endured all his life. The second half of the book goes at a flying pace that before you realise, you are at the end and your heart has been beating double time and you desperately need to come up for air. A twisted story with a fantastic climax.

http://www.jcburke.com.au/

Australian Story

An Illustrated Timeline


by Tania McCartney

NLA Publishing (National Library of Australia). Australian, Picture Book. Paperback RRP $24.95

Guest Reviewer – Jackie French

It’s all here, from the discovery of gold to Cathy Freeman’s Olympic glory, from dinosaurs to the Black Saturday bushfires. It’s a picture book that you can leaf through in five minutes, or find a lifetime of inspiration to follow. Australian Story isn’t the actual stories of Australia: it’s a tantalizing time line that will lure kids to find the history behind the images in the book.

Tania McCartney has done a brilliant job, choosing not just what events matter, but the ones that matter to kids- beginning, of course, with the dinosaur. The national library material she’s worked with is stunning: images, photos, paintings and sketches from their archives that tell our history in a way that is simple to understand but also beautiful.

This is a book that every six year old needs to read, to see as early as possible the threads of our history. It’s also a book that every high school should have, so the stories a history lover knows, can be put in chronological context.

http://www.taniamccartney.com/books.html

The Reading Stack reviewed Tania McCartney’s Riley and the Grumpy Wombat in August 2011.

Stella Makes Good

by Lisa Heidke

Allen and Unwin. Adult Fiction, Australian. Paperback RRP $29.99

Stella is happily separated from her husband. He has moved out and living with a new partner. Stella has the children and the house and everything is perfect.

Having a drink with her best friends, Carly and Jesse, at the local pub begins as an innocent catch up but ends with Carly and Stella discovering what the supposedly ordinary suburban neighbours get up to behind closed doors. All quite a giggle until a face in the crowd seems familiar.

Carly and Stella are torn between protecting their friend, Jesse, or revealing to her that, maybe, her life is all a lie. When all gets too much, Jesse seems to know the answer… but is it the right one?

One night changes everything for all three women. Carly starts to look at her own marriage and her and her husband’s fidelity. Stella reassesses her life and maybe Mike, the wonderful single doctor, is just what she needs, or is she waiting for the fall? Jesse is having trouble keeping her overworked husband happy at home and keeping herself sane. Let’s have another Chardy…

This is a funny but frank and honest look at life, and what we make of it. There is danger, excitement, suspense and romance. In the end do we really want to know the truth?

I read Stella Makes Good in a single day. I was swept up in the drama surrounding the three women and could easily relate to all of them. My problem with this book is that it was too short and I wanted more. I will now search out more of Heidke’s novels.

http://lisaheidke.com/

Fallen in Love

by Lauren Kate

Random House. Young Adult, Fantasy. Paperback RRP $22.95

Reviewer - Barbara Brown

Everyone who is a fan of Lauren Kate and her Fallen series, will love this unexpected interlude showing extra glimpses of the star-crossed lovers, Luce and Daniel.

Fallen in Love relates the love stories of a number of the characters in the series. Four individual stories, set in medieval England on the eve of Valentine’s Day, entwine together and explain why some of the characters act and the way they do now in contemporary time.

This collection of short stories is not a chronological volume in the Fallen series. However, it does continue on from Passion, following extracts of the storyline. It is a must read if you want to know what happens to Luce and Daniel on that night hundreds of years before.

Fallen in Love also comes with a free downloadable Fallen Books app from the App Store or Android Marketplace, where you can watch the front cover come to life and Lauren Kate talks about her books. A very clever marketing tool in this modern world.

Fallen, Torment and Passion are the first three books in this wonderful story of love, right and wrong, good and evil, heaven, earth and hell. And I would definitely recommend them. Rapture, the final tome will be out the middle of 2012.

The Reading Stack reviewed Fallen, Torment  and Passion in February, February 2011 and June 2011 respectively and The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove in September 2011.

http://www.fallenbooks.com/

The Cartographer

by Peter Twohig

 4^th Estate Fiction, Australian, Adult Fiction, Paperback, $29.99

Guest Reviewer - Vicki Stanton

The Cartographer is a book unlike any I have ever read before. Told from the perspective of the eleven-year-old unnamed narrator, it draws us in to the shadowy world of working class Richmond (Melbourne) in 1959. It is a world filled dodgy, sometimes lovable characters, including his Grandfather; bent cops; oddball and damaged people; and some who are just downright mongrels in the extreme.

Twohig uses the vernacular of the times to totally immerse the reader in this world as well as many references to the comics, superheroes, music, television shows, politics, and of course being Melbourne, the football. (I laughed out loud at the line: Life can be murder when the footy season is over).

The heart of The Cartographer lies in the boy’s attempts to make sense of his world following the death of his twin but never does he do this in a maudlin way. With spirit and guts, and the help of his superhero alter-egos and his brave sidekicks (his trusty dogs) he maps his surroundings, above ground and under. 

Above all, The Cartographer is a nod to the innocence and resilience of childhood, even when viewed through glasses tinted with vice and loss.

http://www.petertwohig.com/

Vicki Stanton is the editor and publisher of Buzz Words, an e-zine for writers and illustrators for children.

I Love You Book

by Libby Hathorn, illustrated by Heath McKenzie

IP Kidz. Australian, Picture, Children’s. Hardcover RRP$26.00

A wonderful romp along with Libby Hathorn’s words and Heath McKenzie’s funny and colourful drawings, I Love You Book tells the story of a young girl and the books she meets.

‘The pictures that you show me,
The stories that you tell.’

‘Yes, book you are my friend,
And though you take me far away,
You always, always, always, book,
You bring me home again!’

This is a book that children will enjoy reading, because it is just that… a book about reading and the stories that you discover along the way. For any child that doesn’t like to read, this may just be the right book to get them started. For others, it is a gentle reminder of why we love to read.

http://www.libbyhathorn.com/
http://www.heathmck.com/

Plague

by Michael Grant

Hardie Grant Egmont. Young Adult, Mystery, Science Fiction. Paperback RRP $19.95

Guest Reviewer - Ian Brown

This is the fourth book in the series; Gone, Lies, Hunger and now Plague.

It’s been eight months since all the adults have disappeared, from FAYZ, the Fallout Alley Youth Zone centred on Perdido Beach. You need to have read the previous books, to be up-to-date with what has happened in the FAYZ.

In Plague, fresh water is running out and a fatal flu hits the town, killing many of the children.

The series of books are filled with dark, violent and sometimes gory action. There is a large cast of characters, and multiple storylines to keep the reader in suspense. While Plague does answer many questions, others remain, to keep the reader intrigued. Each new book in the series brings new stories within a complex main story.

If you are a fan of authors like Stephen King and love a good horror story, but have yet to discover this series of books, check them out. As for me I can’t wait for the next instalment, Fear out in 2012.

The Reading Stack reviewed Michael Grant’s Gone in October 2009.

http://www.egmont.co.uk/gone/

http://themichaelgrant.com/