This post was added by Rebecca Newman. Rebecca is a children's writer and poet, and the editor of the Australian children's literary blog, Alphabet Soup.
For more about Rebecca visit: rebeccanewman.net.au.
Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 9780312535636
Skye reviewed her own copy of this book.
Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate is a heartfelt story about finding a true home away from home. An 11-year-old refugee named Kek migrates from Africa to America to live with his only living family members, his aunt and cousin. As curious as he is, English is not his native tongue and he finds that life in America happens to be a great deal different.
What makes this book so special is the poetry of the language and the way Kek observes the world in this new environment. One of my favourite quotes is the first line of the book: ‘When the flying boat returns to earth at last, I open my eyes and gaze out the round window. What is all the white? I whisper. Where is all the world?’ This was the moment I realized Kek had never been on an airplane before. He says ‘flying boat’ to describe an airplane, using the only English words he knows.
Adventuring through this new world, Kek meets friends who bring him strength, including a girl in foster care who might actually understand what he’s been through. Kek in return brings his own meaning of life to America. He finds a weary old cow in need of love; the owner does not have the money to give the cow the life it deserves. In Kek’s culture cows are the meaning of life, also known as ‘God with a wet nose.’ Kek knows there is beauty in this cow and makes it his mission to love the cow like his native people would have treated them.
This book makes you feel happy and teaches the life lesson of being grateful. Kek’s innocent mistakes continue to make me smile. The story symbolises hearts being mended not only for Kek but also the people around him. My rating would definitely be a 10 out of 10.
Our Young Book Reviewers’ Competition is back! The comp is open to Australian residents aged 12 or younger. Entries must be submitted by a parent, guardian or teacher (with parents’ permission). Instructions for entry can be found on our website in Terms & Conditions.
To enter:Review a children’s book from any genre. There is no word limit for reviews.
Fionna Cosgrove is a Western Australian writer with a taste for the wonderfully macabre. Her writing has been published in The School Magazine and anthologies, and she’s also the author of the Twisted Trails series for young readers. Today we’re chatting to Fionna about how she writes her Twisted Tales!
About the Twisted Trails series:
Will you end up a zombie’s breakfast? Or maybe coming face to face with a kelp-haired sea witch is more your style? Whatever your taste, you’ll find it in this wild and spooky interactive series … How will your story end? Well, that’s entirely up to you.
What brought you to write The Midnight Manor (Book 1 of your series)?
It actually came about while I was waiting to hear back from publishers about another manuscript. I had sent out one manuscript and was wondering what to write next. It was around October, and I thought why not quickly write a book for my niece and nephew for Christmas? So I started writing The Midnight Manor. It was only meant to be a short choose-your-path book, aimed at kids 6–8. With that in mind, the word count was quite low, so I wrote the book within a few weeks. It was once I went back and started fleshing it out that the book kept expanding, and expanding and expanding, and I realised pretty quickly I had a middle grade book in my hands … and not just one, but a whole series. Once I had written the draft I figured if I’m going to get it printed for my niece and nephew, why not self publish it and put it out into the world? So with shaking hands, I started the process!
The idea for a series developed pretty easily after that. Why not write more if the first one was so much fun? Plus, there are MANY more creepy settings I’d love to explore!
How do you go about plotting a choose-your-path style book when there are so many different storylines/endings to keep track of?
I found this tricky. I initially just started writing and at any point that felt like a decision needed to be made, I made a fork and went on my merry way. It was only after a few forks and a few dead ends and plot holes, that I realised I needed to be a bit more organised. I pulled out a giant piece of paper and started drawing a big old story map. I start with one box at the top then drew two lines out of that for each decision with more and more boxes and lines indicating the paths. It sounds a bit complicated but it’s actually pretty easy. I’ve even made some free printouts you can download from my website that talk you through it.
One thing that can get confusing is time lines. Trying to remember where all your characters would be if different choices were made or not made can get a little confusing, but plotting it out helps! As far as the endings, I like to have a good mix of ‘reasonably happy’ endings and ‘not so happy at all’ endings, with one or two ‘absolutely perfect’ endings. I also try and figure out the ‘absolutely perfect’ endings first so that I have a bit of direction while I’m writing, otherwise I have a tendency to get myself a little lost …
You also write the regular kind of novels that only have one ending! Does one type of book take longer to write than the other?
The choose-your-path books are actually much quicker to write for me. They are full of crazy twists and turns and wild characters, but I don’t spend too much time on backstories or character growth. It’s fast-paced action with a lot of humour thrown in. And horror … a lot of horror.
I have a book coming out in October called Sadie and The Secret of The Swamp which has just one story line! I know, crazy. And that took me over a year and a half to write and edit. In comparison, The Midnight Manor only took three months from first draft to sending it off to my editor.
Do you have a tip for kids who’d like to try writing their own choose-your-path book?
Choose a great setting! With an interactive book you get dumped right into the action straight away so there’s less time for a detailed backstory. I find the best way to add some intrigue is to have a brilliant setting that acts as its own character. A spooky mansion that appears out of the mist at midnight … or a submerged grotto filled with bioluminescent coral in a deserted town, or my latest one – a creepy summer camp set in the middle of the forest.
And use a story map to keep track of your paths!
I’d also like to say plot everything out to save you running into plot holes and dead ends everywhere, but sometimes I think the most fun part of writing is discovering the story as you go. So just have fun. The first draft is meant to be messy and weird. The second draft is for making sense of it!
What’s next for Fionna Cosgrove?
I have two books coming out this year! I have book 3 of my Twisted Trails series: Camp Crypt. This is my creepiest one yet, with even my 45-year-old sister telling me she had to sleep with the lights on after reading it. (Spoiler, she’s not a fan of clowns). And I have another spooky mystery – Sadie and The Secret of the Swamp – coming out at the end of October. Other than that, I’ve booked in a few author talks across the year, so that should keep me and my nerves busy for a while. And in general, I just want to keep writing and live a creative life, however that looks at any particular moment.
Ask for the Twisted Trails series at your favourite bookshop or library, or order online.
Jack’s Island is a short novel by Norman Jorgenson featuring a boy named Jack. Along with his friends Banjo and Dafty, Jack finds himself causing mischief on their small island village off the coast of Australia during World War II. One day, whilst exploring near the cliffs, Jack and Banjo stumble across a Japanese helmet and a rifle. Could this discovery be the invasion they have been anticipating? With Pearl Harbor already bombed just north of their tight-knit island, they possibly face a dangerous situation.
The book is hard to put down due to its ability to capture the reader’s attention and hold onto it for the duration of the book. The characters from the Japanese soldier to trouble-maker Jack, adds an engaging storyline for the readers. Because of this, I confidently rate this book 4 stars out of 5.
I would recommend this book for children ages 8-12 as it is a fun read and suitable for their reading level.
Deb Fitzpatrick writes for adults, young adults and children. She loves using stories from real life in her novels and regularly teaches creative writing to people of all ages. Deb’s own dog is a kelpie, who is absolutely not a failed sheep dog. Today we’re talking to Deb about her latest novel, Kelpie Chaos.
The publisher provided Alphabet Soup with a reading copy of Kelpie Chaos.
From the publisher:
A kelpie puppy is about to be sent to the pound and Eli knows he has to do something. After adopting the flame-chested kelpie, now named Zoom, the family falls in love, but they soon learn there’s a lot involved in raising a dog. Especially a working dog, who is hardwired to round up pretty much everything … even socks. When Zoom goes missing on a family bushwalk, the family sets out on a frantic search. What mischief could a dog get up to in the bush?
Can you tell us a bit about your own dog?
First thing I need to say here is I adore our dog, Louie. He really is our fur-baby!! He is a kelpie crossed with Australian shepherd, just like Zoom in Kelpie Chaos. And just like Zoom, he can be cheeky. Louie is black all over and has a small white flame on his chest, is dead handsome and smart-as. He has a huge loving heart, prefers people to dogs, and loves to take us on walks as frequently as possible!
Louie was a huge inspiration for Zoom in Kelpie Chaos, along with a story another dog-walker told me about her father’s kelpie. This kelpie would spend all day with him out at work on construction sites in the country. One day he disappeared, and what happened next became part of the book.
What’s the naughtiest thing your dog has ever done?
Thankfully, our dog Louie isn’t very naughty, except when it comes to chasing cats. By far the naughtiest dog we’ve ever owned was a gorgeous, intelligent and seriously cheeky fox terrier, when we lived in Costa Rica. We used to call him Chester the English Fox Terrier. My husband had gone to a lot of effort to bake a cake one morning and he left it to cool on the counter while the two of us went out to work. When we returned home, the cake was just crumbs all over the floor. Chester the English Fox Terrier did not spend that night inside with us, put it that way. I re-imagined this story in Kelpie Chaos, changing it to suit the book. I love to take things from real life and mash them into my fiction, as some of your readers may know from my other books.
What are some of your favourite books about dogs?
There are so many brilliant books about dogs and the connection between children and their dogs. There are several picture books about dogs that I particularly love, starting with Dog In, Cat Out by Gillian Rubinstein, which I read with my kids when they were younger. More recently, I love Briony Stewart’s Magoo books and When Billy was a Dog by Kirsty Murray and Karen Blair. Dianne Wolfer’s Scout and the Rescue Dogs is a huge personal favourite and I’m so happy to see it shortlisted in multiple literary awards this year! When I was a kid I adored Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight and then developed an obsession with the television show ‘Lassie’. Finally, I have to mention the ABC TV documentary series about working dogs, ‘Muster Dogs’, which I can’t get enough of. Those beautiful kelpies and border collies!
Do you have a word prompt or scenario you’d like to challenge young readers to try?
Here’s my challenge to Alphabet Soup readers: Write a scene or story, poem or song about your dog (or other beloved pet). Weave in a human character who is a bit like you and feel free to tweak a few details and add an event to make the story funnier or more dramatic. Have fun and see where it takes you! That’s pretty much all I do with my writing, and somehow I now have a small pile of novels with my name on them!
What’s next for you and your writing projects?
I’m halfway through the first draft of a new book – similar to Kelpie Chaos and also for middle readers,but this one’s about a different animal and a different family … It has adventure-in-the-forest vibes and that’s all I’m willing to reveal at this stage! Watch this space!
Kelpie Chaos is out now! Find it at your favourite bookshop, library or order online.
Cristy Burne writes fiction and nonfiction and her books are bursting with adventure, friendship, family, nature, science and technology. Cristy has worked as a science communicator for nearly 20 years across six countries. She has been a science circus performer, garbage analyst, museum writer, and atom-smashing reporter at CERN, but her all-time favourite job is working with kids to embrace the intersection between science, technology and creativity.
Today we’re thrilled to be chatting with Cristy about her novel Into the Blue, illustrated by Amanda Burnett.
The publisher provided Alphabet Soup with a reading copy of Into the Blue.
From the publisher:
Blair and his cousin embark on an adventurous day out, snorkelling on the wreck of the Omeo, but their excitement turns to panic when Blair loses his brother’s cherished GoPro camera on the seabed. No one knows about his mistake except his cousin, and she urges Blair to keep it a secret. But Blair’s lies quickly spiral out of control. Terrified to confess but wracked with guilt, Blair is left floundering in the deep.
I’ll take a wild guess that you’ve been snorkelling yourself! Where’s the best place you’ve been to snorkel?
I love snorkelling and I snorkelled a lot on the Omeo wreck to research this book. Many of my favourite places to snorkel are in Western Australia: Rottnest Island, Ningaloo Reef, Mettams Pool, Yanchep Lagoon and Penguin Island, to name a few. There are so many awesome places to explore!
I’ve also snorkelled and SCUBA dived a lot around Australia and the world. My Aussie favourites are Cocos Island and Christmas Island, plus the Whitsundays in Queensland. (I’ve never snorkelled on the Great Barrier Reef … yet!)
My favourite dive spot ever is in Japan in the Ogasawara Islands, 1000 kilometres south of Tokyo in the Pacific Ocean.
Do you have a favourite underwater creature or element that you look out for when you go snorkelling?
I don’t like to chase underwater creatures. Instead, I like to float around like a piece of seaweed and wait for them to come to me. In this way I’ve been lucky to have seen dolphins, turtles, seals and even sharks go swimming past.
Even though I love seeing big things, my favourites are tiny things. My absolute number-one favourite thing is something that Blair also experiences in Into The Blue. It’s when you find yourself in the middle of a school of teeny-tiny fish that glitter and whirl like a magical cloud and it feels like you’re in another world. I love that feeling!
When you were growing up, did you ever get into trouble for touching/using something you weren’t supposed to?
No. Never. I was always very obedient and good.
Right?
Except for a b-u-n-c-h of times when I got into trouble. One time I remember, my mum had brought a doll’s pram home from my sisters’ kindy. She parked it in the garage and said, “Don’t touch it, Cristy.”
But that pram looked soooo interesting. And I was sure it was big enough to fit more than just dolls. In fact, I was sure that if I tried, I could fit into that pram!
So I snuck into the garage and climbed in.
And you know what? I did fit! It was awesome!
But when I tried to climb out, I couldn’t. I was jammed stuck.
I knew that if Mum found me, she’d be cross, so I had to get out. But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t budge from that pram.
In the end, I had to cry out for help. When Mum finally arrived in the garage, looking very confused, she found me bawling my eyes out and stuck. So, she did what all good parents would do (!?!), and she fetched her camera to take a photo of me stuck there. How lovely. Now we can always remember The Time Cristy Got Stuck In The Doll’s Pram.
Do you have a word prompt or scenario you’d like to challenge young writers to try?
I think a wonderful way to write is to go into the place that you’re writing about with a notebook and pen. Then, breathe deep and tune your senses into that place. Write down all your thoughts and ideas and similes and feelings about:
– what you can smell and hear
– interesting ways to describe what you see
– how the landscape makes you feel and what you feel in your body in those moments
– how things feel to touch: bark, sand, leaves, wind, the pen in your hand, everything.
The place you write in might be your school playground, or a nearby bushland, or even waiting at a bus stop to go to school. (If you do this activity, I’d love to hear how you went…you can contact me through my website: cristyburne.com/
What’s next for Cristy Burne?
So many things!!! I want to learn how to be a bike mechanic so I can look after my mountain bike better. I want to dig up my lawn so I can plant native plants for lizards and birds and creatures to live in. I’m planning a hiking adventure in the gorges of Kalbarri National Park.
And … I’m doing lots of school visits and festival tours to talk to readers and creators about Into The Blue, plus my new graphic novel with Rebel Challenger (called Ultra Violet: Down to Business).
PLUS, I’m working on not one, not two but THREE new secret projects. I love having lots of things to make and create and try. It’s always hard to make new things, because they never really turn out how I want them to, especially on the first try. But I love the challenge of trying to make something I’m really proud of.
And I’m really proud of my books.
Thank you so much for reading down this far, and thank you also for reading my books. I hope they make you laugh and get you excited for having your own adventures!
Into the Blue is out now! Find it at your favourite bookshop, library or order online.
Maddy McAllister: Shipwreck Detective (Aussie STEM stars series), story told by Deb Fitzpatrick, Wild Dingo Press, ISBN 9781925893823
Elizabeth received a review copy of this book.
Six-year-old Maddy McAllister, a shipwreck detective, started her adventure in Wangi Falls – her favourite place to cool down. But then her parents took an unexpected turn. Maddy and her sister Ally changed schools and moved to Pine Creek for their father’s job. It was 225 kilometres from Darwin where they used to live. Then she moved closer to her grandparents because her father found a different job in Perth, which meant Maddy and Ally, could spend more time with their grandparents. Maddy’s grandad was always by her side ever since they moved to Perth, every step of the way, encouraging her every day. He told her stories all the time when they went on fishing trips which her grandad called “on the high seas”.
One day, her grandad told her a story about a shipwreck which made her curious. A few days later, she heard on the radio that there was going to be a lecture about a different shipwreck discovery. Little did she know that this lecture would change her life.
My favourite person in this book was Maddy’s grandad because he was encouraging and supportive of Maddy in every way he could. I can relate to this book because Maddy faced what I faced when I was six years old, which was to leave close friends and transfer to a new school and new town.
This book is by Deb Fitzpatrick who also wrote Ajay Rane that I have written a review for as well. I think that this book Maddy McAllister is interesting and inspiring.
I recommend this book for age seven plus and rate this book 10 out of 10.
Maddy McAllister: Shipwreck Detective is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library, or order it online.
Tracey Dembo writes books encouraging big questions, daring dreams and wild imaginations. She’s the author of two picture books: An A to Z of Dreaming Differently, illustrated by Lucia Masciullo, and This Book is a Time Machine, illustrated by Lucinda Gifford. Today we’re excited to chat to Tracey about This Book is a Time Machine!
From the publisher:
Guess what? You are holding a real-life time machine! You don’t believe me? I’ll show you! For a start, I wrote this blurb in the PAST. Yet, you are reading it in the PRESENT. And when you finish reading the blurb, it will be the FUTURE …
The author (you!) and the illustrator are both characters in This Book is a Time Machine. Did you meet Lucinda Gifford while she was working on the illustrations?
I actually didn’t meet Lucinda while working on the illustrations – the first time I met Lucinda was before that, during the Maurice Saxby Mentorship Program in 2022 (an incredible creative development program for children’s creators that I was fortunate enough to be part of). Lucinda was a former mentee of this program, and we were fortunate to have lunch with her and to hear all about her creative journey and processes as part of the mentorship. I was completely in awe of her, and it was so inspiring to listen to her experiences. So, you can imagine how excited I was to hear that she had agreed to do the illustrations for This Book Is a Time Machine! Once she had signed up, we met early in the process, via a video call with Tash, our publisher. This is not necessarily the conventional way authors and illustrators collaborate on a book, but because we are both actual characters in the book (which is unusual), it was really important to make sure we were all on the same page and to work closely together. It was a great experience to be able to work like this with such an incredible illustrator and creative team, including Tash and Kristy Lund-White (the designer).
If you climbed into a time machine, would you choose to go into the past or the future?
I would probably go backwards into the past and meet some of the incredible people who are no longer with us. Frida Kahlo and Albert Einstein would be two people who I would really love to meet.
This book features so many creatures, people and events escaping from their time in history – if you were dressing up as a character from This Book is a Time Machine for a Book Week parade, what would your costume be?
Although this is one book I could get away with not dressing up for (as I could go as myself), I would definitely go as the mummy.*
I just love the different facial expressions of this character throughout the book (I’m pretty sure one of those expressions is how I look before I’ve had my morning coffee).
*Check out the mummy in the letter E on the book’s cover.
If we took a time machine into the future, what would we see Future Tracey working on?
Look, I would love to be able to say that Future Tracey would be working on an international best-seller, but I guess I would need to use my time machine to find out if this is true!
In the meantime, I am writing as much as I can in the hope that a future brilliant idea will come to me.
Do you have a tip for young writers who would like to try writing their own picture books?
My tip would be to keep on going and persisting, even when your work does not turn out how you want it to. Making mistakes and mess and improving your craft is all part of the process and so it is really important not to give up.
This Book is a Time Machine is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library, or order online.
The First Summer of Callie McGee by A.L. Tait, Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd, ISBN 9781760260163
Mia received a review copy of this book.
The First Summer Of Callie McGee is a fantastic book written by A.L Tait.
In this book Callie and her family friends go on a traditional trip to Sawyers Point.
Callie’s character is a kind of nerdy goody-two-shoes. She is quiet, warm and kindhearted. Callie seems to be one of those girls though who wants to be a popular cool kid and thinks that she needs to have a cool name “CJ”. Callie’s real name is really Calliope-Jean!
Callie is constantly asking herself, what would CJ do? Callie finds herself in a variety of different situations where she must find her inner CJ.
Callie’s older friend Sasha is everything Callie dreams to be … she is cool, popular and pretty. When Sasha is told to go to the beach and watch all her cousins and the kids, instead she goes to hang out with a boy, Ned. Sasha puts Callie in charge but when one of the kids gets caught in a rip, Callie must once again think – what would CJ do?
Mitch’s parents and Callie’s parents are good friends, so Callie must deal with him and his cousin, Owen. The three of them find out there have been some robberies and a possible ghost sighting at Sawyers Point. Again, Callie had to find her inner CJ. Sasha goes missing one night and Callie, Mitch and Owen go out to find her.
Callie comes up against several situations where she must be brave or grown up and has to find her inner CJ. This book is definitely about the challenges of change and of growing up.
I recommend The First Summer of Callie McGee by A.L. Tait for ages 10+ because I think some of the concepts younger children wouldn’t understand.
I think this book is an amazing book that shows anyone can do or be anything.
The First Summer of Callie McGee is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookstore or local library, or order online.
Western Australian family-friendly event: Bring a picnic blanket and enjoy a morning of poetry and outdoor activities to celebrate the release of Right Way Down, a brand new children’s poetry collection from WA authors.
Poetry readings; games; activities; light snacks; and book sales from Dymocks Subiaco. Some of the contributing authors will be there on the day for signings.
WHEN: Saturday April 6th, 10:30am WHERE: Rankin Gardens, cnr Hamersley Rd and Rokeby Rd, Subiaco, WA BOOKINGS: FREE but required, via eventbrite.
alphabetsoup.net.au 