The Fabulous Finola Fox - Carmel Bird

Did you know that foxes have a fetish for shoes? That urban foxes can actually collect them and hoard them in their dens? When Carmel Bird, author across a wide array of genres, came across this fascinating morsel one day in her reading, it inspired her to craft a children’s story around it. Finola is an urban fox with an eye for a good shoe and a remarkable talent for pilfering them: ‘Silent as a snowflake and quick as a flash of lightning, Finola would snatch up a shoe, or a pair of shoes, pop them into her handbag and disappear into the shadows’. Her collection of shoes is so extensive – row upon row of them – she dreams of one day displaying them in her own gallery. But for now, Finola is on a mission. One of the shoes in her collection – of the green, jewelled and feathered variety, found in an alley one moonlit night – is missing its pair. In her quest to find a partner for this marvellous specimen, Finola finds herself on an adventure visiting all sorts of places and seeing every aspect of the city. She visits cafes and arcades, a fun park, a department store, the Art Gallery and even the Opera House. And along the way she finds some unexpected help.

 

This is a delightful story that young children will love. Finola is an endearing character whose adventure through the city will have this audience captivated. For children familiar with Sydney, there is much in the book they will recognise, for example Luna Park and the Botanic Gardens which provides a good basis for further exploration. And they will enjoy the repetition of travelling back again through the settings they have discovered with Finola during her quest. The book has an engaging storyline which includes a gratifying element of surprise at the end.

 

Kerry Argent’s illustrations work well with the text, adding charm and vibrancy, and infusing Finola with personality that is both captivating and cheeky. The illustrations bring humour and warmth to the story, as well as providing readers plenty to discover in the finer detail on subsequent returns.
 

The Fabulous Finola Fox has much going for it – a great read with plenty to engage the mind of a child and to provide entertainment for them and their adult alike. Recommended.

 

Penguin/Viking 2012

Monkey Red Monkey Blue - Nicki Greenberg

It’s night time, but Monkey Blue and Monkey Red don’t want to go to bed. They’d rather stay up. But what to do? That fiendish Chameleon has an idea. A midnight feast! Imagine what happens when two monkeys and a mischievous chameleon rampage through the pantry. Let the mayhem begin.

 

Nicki Greenberg has produced a rambunctious read for babies and toddlers, full of rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeia and colour. The story is a delightful celebration of unbridled chaos in the kitchen. The text is simple and spare and works well with the bold illustrations – a mix of Greenberg’s trademark impish characters and a collage of photographic images of food. It’s easy to see Greenberg’s proclivity for the comic strip by the way the story unfolds in a seamless combination of text and image.

 

Youngsters will have fun spotting the chameleon on each page. A thoroughly entertaining read. Recommended.

 

Allen & Unwin 2010

 

(A version of this review appears in Magpies Vol 25, Issue 5, November 2010)

Hit List - Jack Heath

To the average observer, Ashley Arthur is a teenager who maintains a low profile, studies hard and keeps pretty much to herself. Her father thinks she should get out more. Ash convinces him her classmates are boring, only interested in clothes, bands and politics – clique politics – as in who stole whose best friend. Besides, she’s got Benjamin as a friend.

 

If only her father knew. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with his own problems, he might have noticed that his daughter’s life was anything but mundane. And as for getting out more –

Ash is not into socialising in a big way because she has too many secrets. What’s the point of having friends if you can’t talk to them? How would she explain all her absences? It was hard enough doing that with her dad.

 

Ashley and Benjamin are teenage mercenaries. Their brief is to locate stolen artefacts and return them to their owners. For a fee – a large fee. In Hit List, Ash and Benjamin are hired to rescue an imprisoned girl, but things go awry and get out-of-this-world dangerous when it turns out they are not alone in their mission.

 

Jack Heath has written another edge-of-your-seat page-turner. It’s a ripper of an adventure and hard to put down. Think James Bond and Alex Rider. This is his sixth book and the second in the Ashley Arthur series.

 

Heath has done his homework and doesn’t shy away from a bit of blood and gore. The miners were strewn all over the floor of the tunnel. Most had exit wounds in their backs. The rest had imploded heads. Ash could smell the blood, rank and coppery.

 

Heath incorporates a good mix of dry wit and humour into the text. His writing is tight, scenes well developed and the dialogue believable, engaging his YA readers at a number of levels. His plotting, overall, is well thought out, although I was disappointed with the epilogue, which, in contrast to the rest of the book, seemed rushed.

 

For readers who don’t mind having their imaginations stretched and are up for some high teen adventure, this book will not disappoint. And a bargain at the special price of $9.99. Recommended.

 

Pan Macmillan 2010

 

(A version of this review appears in Magpies Vol 25, Issue 5, November 2010)

The Fixers Books 1 & 2: Castle of the Zombies and Planet of the Cyborgs - Sean Williams

Weird stuff is happening in Oliver Jolson’s new street. Moving house is bad enough, but when the internet keeps crashing, the phone lines are out for a whole day and the plumbing gets blocked – something is not right. They’re all signs. But Ollie doesn’t make the connection until it’s too late. Something extraordinarily freaky happens in the middle of the night – something to do with the mysterious instrument-toting Fixers – and Ollie steps through a blue light into a parallel universe. But can he find his way home again?

In Castle of the Zombies, after doing battle with the loathsome Lord Wight to save his new friend Niff’s village from certain destruction in a place where the walls actually have ears and eyes, Ollie finds another blue door that seems to lead him home. But he’s in for a big surprise.

In an attempt to find his true home, Ollie takes another tumble through the blue light of cyberspace in Planet of the Cyborgs. He finds himself on an adventure of intergalactic proportions as he is called out on a rescue mission, this time to deal with a bunch of space pirates who steal people to convert them into cyborg slaves – half-human and half-machine. And his offsider is a cat who thinks he is human.

In The Fixers, Sean Williams has created a series that kids will love. Inventive, cleverly plotted and tightly written, these books are bound to become favourites. Ollie is an entirely believable character who is just fearless enough to take the reader on a rip-roaring adventure. Williams’ world-building is imaginative and entertaining; primary school children will love Ollie’s psychic typewriter and telepathic TV – as well as the cast of characters in this four-book series. Nial O’Connor’s foxy illustrations are spot-on and work well with the text. Recommended.

 

Omnibus Books 2010

 

(A version of this review appears in Magpies Vol 25, Issue 5, November 2010)

Grace Beside Me - Sue McPherson

It is 2008, the year Kevin Rudd says sorry to the Stolen Generations and all affected by their plight, and a year of significant change for Fuzzy Mac who lives with her Nan and Pop in the small country town of Laurel Dale – Laurie as the locals call it. Fuzzy – christened Ocean Skye by her hippie mother, but nicknamed on account of her fuzzy hair – has always lived with her grandparents. Her father, Sonny Boy, is often away with work and her mother died of an overdose when Fuzzy was a baby. However life with Nan and Pop is anything but a raw deal – it’s rich in family ritual and infused with the importance of culture. Nan, a Koorie, has dreams and premonitions; it’s nothing for her to strike up conversations with the spirits of those who have passed. However living with Nan also has its moments, especially when she expresses an opinion on something. About saying grace for instance: ‘Been bustin’ me belly all day makin’ this all taste good and proper … the tucker will be buggered. The Lord knows we are all grateful, so we don’t need to be tellin’ him over and over every mealtime’. By osmosis Fuzzy is inculcated with the vernacular of her grandparents and sometimes her friends wonder what she’s on about when she talks about bloomers, listening to the wireless or taking a Bex.

 

Fuzzy’s story includes a wide and colourful cast of characters as we meet the members of her wider family and community: her best mates Tui Mui and Teddy Ryan; Bruiser Buchanan who likes the drink and beats up his wife; Lefty and his nasty dog Dunlop, who Nan describes as ‘mad as a bloody meat axe’; creepy Mr Ridgeway, the town Mayor; Father John, who reminds Fuzzy and Pop of Fred Flintstone; the bad Mullins boys and their beautiful sister Mary; and of course next-door-neighbours Yar, who is ‘a real funny bugger’ – a man with a doctorate who occasionally wears tutus over his clothes and is followed around by a spirit called Bruce – and Yar’s wife Jilly, to name a few. These characters add a veracity and authenticity to Fuzzy’s telling of her story.

 

Grace Beside Me is Sue McPherson’s debut young adult novel. In 2011 she won the black&write! kuril dhagan Indigenous Writing Fellowship, a partnership between the State Library of Queensland and Magabala books, which recruits, trains and mentors Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and editors to develop Indigenous-authored manuscripts. The result is warm-hearted, gutsy and humorous.. The voices of Fuzzy Mac and Nan, the main characters, are superb. Written with her own sons in mind and teenagers who are likely to dip into a book and not necessarily read it in its entirety, each chapter is an entity in itself, often loaded with a teaching point or message. Although, initially, I was expecting the book to take the usual course of a novel and follow a stronger overarching plotline – which perhaps I would have preferred – shaped as it is in the style of a teen memoir, with Fuzzy as the narrator, Grace Beside Me with its strong characterisation, will hold broad appeal. It highlights the importance of family, friends, and belonging and the beauty of embracing everyday life in its varying shades. What comes through in McPherson’s writing is the role of story in Fuzzy’s life. ‘Stories link us to our mob, doesn’t matter if you are Koorie, Irish, Kiwi, Welsh or Indian … these stories bring our people close, both young and old. Stories keep our culture strong and our faith alive’.

 

Grace Beside Me is down-to-earth, funny, poignant and original. Sue McPherson, with her unique approach to storytelling – albeit with the cheeky inclusion of a bit of moralising – has produced a book that will warm the hearts of her young adult readers.

 

Magabala Books 2012

 

(A version of this review appears in Magpies Vol 27, Issue 2, May 2012)

Lily and the Fairy House - Jane Tanner

A book that celebrates the imagination is always a welcome addition to any child’s bookcase and Jane Tanner’s latest contribution deserves pride of place. Any child who loves fairies and is familiar with Isabella’s Secret will be overjoyed to discover its sequel, Lily and the Fairy House. Tanner knows what it is like to dream as a child does, to conjure up a miniature fantasy world, fit it out with all the necessities then step into it and live there for a time. This picture-story book is an irresistible invitation for children to step inside Lily’s imagination and share in her make-believe fairy-world by dreaming along with her.

 

Lily finds a hollow space in a gum tree in her secret place in the garden and decides this would be the perfect spot for a fairy house. She sets about furnishing it with leaves, petals and gumnuts and arranging the table for a fairy party. But will the fairies come? Every child reading along with the story will be holding their breath with Lily at this point – and will share in her exuberance when ‘a group of tiny people dance in and out of the shadows like shining fireflies’. And more so as the fairies ask Lily if they can play with her. The rest is a joyful wingding as the fairies frolic on Lily’s ribbon-swing and sail in her leaf-boat; they even make Lily a fairy crown out of flowers. However, there is a sudden commotion and the fairies vanish as quickly as they arrive. Lily must find out why.

 

This is a thoroughly engaging book with exquisitely detailed illustrations that capture the warmth and gentleness of the story. The pictures are drawn in pencil on watercolour paper and coloured with watercolours, soft pastel and coloured pencil. Tanner has used photographs of actual children as her models, posing them in the positions she has Lily and her fairies in the book and by basing the detail of her illustrations on Australian flora and fauna, Tanner has produced tenderly realistic images that lend themselves to gazing at and daydreaming over. As an added bonus, the dust cover opens out to reveal a delightful poster of Australian native flowers and their accompanying fairies.

 

Lily and the Fairy House is a warm-hearted picture book that is a celebration of wishing, dreaming and imagining rolled into one magical reading experience.

 

Penguin/Viking 2012

 

(A version of this review appears in Magpies Vol 27, Issue 2, May 2012)

The Tunnels of Tarcoola - Jennifer Walsh

From the moment you set eyes on Jennifer Walsh’s new book, it’s a safe bet you’ll be seriously tempted to pick it up. The cover design – in foreboding sepia tones – is a reader-magnet: an old haunted house in the moonlight, set against a back-drop of omen-heavy clouds and the silhouettes of four young people in a shadowy tunnel. After you turn over to the back cover blurb your fate is likely to be sealed. How could you possibly return this book to the shelf and resist being lured by the mention of secret passageways in an abandoned mansion, a hidden box of documents and lurking figures who watch every move the protagonists make? It’s a recipe for adventure; albeit a recipe that has a familiar ring to it.

 

In true Enid Blyton style, from the opening sequence, Walsh sets out to enthral her readers with a plot that has as many twists and turns as the secret tunnels and passageways under Tarcoola mansion. Kitty, with her brother Martin, and friends Andrea and David, happen upon a tunnel at the base of a cliff one day during a particularly low tide; the entrance is in the middle of a circle of rocks –‘the doughnut’ – which is normally covered by water. Their adventure begins when they decide to explore the tunnel and find it leads to a secret passageway under Tarcoola mansion. As the story unravels, the four unwittingly become submerged in a mystery that thrusts them into a search for a hidden treasure and a race to prevent Tarcoola being razed by property developers to make way for apartment buildings. When some of them are threatened by the developer’s henchmen, and Kitty and Andrea visit an old woman in the local nursing home, the four discover there is enough at stake to warrant risking their lives.

 

Though Walsh writes to a formula, she does so successfully. Her prose is tight and engaging and her characters believable. Written in the third person from multiple viewpoints, Walsh gradually brings to light the underlying issues each of the four protagonists must deal with in their personal lives; the complexity of the nature of their relationships is revealed as the story unfolds, rounding out her characterisation with warmth and verisimilitude.

 

The Tunnels of Tarcoola is a well-paced page-turner. Clever use of foreshadowing and withholding of detail add to the allure of this captivating adventure story. Intrigue, suspense and tension are metered out skilfully to make this a most enjoyable and engaging read. Highly recommended.

 

Allen & Unwin 2012

 

(A version of this review appears in Magpies Vol 27, Issue 1, March 2012)