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.
Our Australian Girl: Meet Daisy by Michelle Hamer, ill. Lucia Masciullo, ISBN 9780143307631, Puffin
REVIEWED BY MATILDA, 8, WA
Matilda borrowed this book from her local library.
Meet Daisy is set in 1930. Her dad can’t find a job and they’re poor, so she gets sent to the city in Melbourne to live with her Aunty May. Her little sister Flora goes as well.
Aunty May loves Flora but she really doesn’t like Daisy and Aunty May gets meaner and meaner every day. Daisy is scared that her aunt might throw her out if she doesn’t earn some money. She’s very disappointed that she can’t go to school and she really misses her dad.
I like stories with adventure and where something tragic happens and the characters have to find a way out of the situation. This is a really adventurous story and once I started reading I couldn’t stop. I’m up to book three in this series already (Daisy and the Mansion).
A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.
This is a book about a girl called Amber who loves her mother but her mother has changed after an accident. Amber doesn’t want her mum coming to the Mothers Day party at school because she’s very embarrassed about her.
I really liked this book because at the start it made me feel very sad and then at the end I was happier. It was quite quick to read and had some interesting words.
The style of the drawings was the sort I like. They were black and white and there were lots of them. When you look at the pictures you can understand what’s happening in the story even better.
I would recommend Roses are Blue to my friends because it’s a change from the other sorts of books we read and it could be a true story.
This book would be good for ages 6 and older.
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Matilda is one of our regular book reviewers. Her most recent review (if you don’t count this one) was of Meet Nellie. If YOU would like to send us a book review, check out our submission guidelines. Happy reading!
Matilda (8) reviewed Roses are Blue as part of Sally Murphy’s blog tour launching the book. We have one copy of this book to give away to an eager reader (yay! yay!).
HERE’S HOW TO ENTER:
Roses are Blue is Sally Murphy’s third verse novel. As well as nonfiction and fiction, Sally has had many poems published. You can read some of her recent poetry on the Poetry Tag blog.
1. Visit the Poetry Tag blog and check out the poems there.
2. Choose your favourite poem by Sally on the Poetry Tag site.
3. Email us and in 50 words or fewer let us know the poem you’ve chosen and why. Include your name and postal address. (If under 18 ask a parent or teacher to email your entry to us.)
Some fine print:
Entries are open to adults and children. Children will need to ask a parent or teacher to email their entry to us.
Entrants outside Australia welcome — but we will only post the book to an Australian address, so you’ll need to nominate an Australian address for us to post it to if you win.
You may only enter this giveaway once.
This giveaway ends 10am WST (that’s when it’s 10am in Perth, Western Australia) on Wednesday 6 August 2014.
All entrants’ names will be put into a soup bowl and one name will be drawn out to be the winner.
We will announce the winner on the blog within a week of notifying the winner.
This competition is not open to immediate family members of Alphabet Soup employees.
The prize includes one copy of Roses are Blue by Sally Murphy — mailed to one winner.
The winner will be notified via email.
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This giveaway is part of a blog tour to celebrate the launch of Roses are Blue. For more about Sally Murphy, verse novels and Roses are Blue, check out the other stops on the blog tour:
The Secret Abyss by Darrell Pitt, ISBN 9781922147967, Text Publishing
REVIEWED BY CELINE, 11, WA
A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.
Imagine living in a world where an infamous villain could be around the corner. One of your long lost friends comes bleeding and gives you a message but because he is dying the messages are shuffled. Jack Mason and his allies are on a mission to capture the Chameleon, a dangerous assassin, who has escaped from prison. Somebody else, however, is involved in the case. Charles Ashgrove, who is apparently linked to an infamous terrorist group, helped the Chameleon escape to achieve numerous crimes. The first on their list is to kill the president. They have already captured an ingenious inventor to build their deadly weapon “The Whip of Fire”.
Will Jack and his allies be able to save the president? Can they catch the Chameleon and punish Charles Ashgrove in time?
Second in the series to The Firebird Mystery, The Secret Abyss was an enjoyable book with hilarious jokes, and scary villains. I was tied to the book from start to finish, experiencing the same story as the characters.
I would recommend this book to hungry bookworms who love a twist of dare and mystery. This book ended surprisingly, and I was both sad for the characters, yet happy for them as well. I would rate it a perfect score: 10/10.
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Celine is one of our regular book reviewers. Her most recent review (if you don’t count this one) was of Shadow Sister. If YOU would like to send us a book review,check out our submission guidelines. Happy reading!
You are invited to celebrate the publication of Rescue on Nim’s Island by Wendy Orr!
When: Saturday 26 July 2014 at 2pm Where: Petersen’s Bookshop, 103 High St, Hastings VIC 3915 RSVP:info@teachersresource.com.au by Wednesday 23 July 2014
Three cities, three book launches for Hasel and Rose by Carline Magerl!
Caroline Magerl will be demonstrate her watercolour technique, accompanied by clarinetist Janet Brewer. (And you could win the demonstration watercolour as a door prize!)
Here’s where to go.
Sydney:
Thursday, August 7 at 6 pm
Books Kinokuniya,
level 2, The Galleries,
500 George St, Sydney
Melbourne:
Saturday August 9 at 3 pm
Little Book Room
759 Nicholson Street, Carlton North
Brisbane:
Friday, August 22 at 6 pm
Black Cat Books
179 Latrobe Terrace, Paddington
Matilda borrowed this book from her school library.
This book is set in 1849. An Irish girl (Nellie) and her friend (Mary) are on their way to South Australia from a workhouse in Ireland and they have to look for jobs. If Nellie does get a job, will she ever see Mary again?
I borrowed this book from the library because my friend is from Ireland and she said she really liked it. I learned that in 1849 it was really hard to find jobs and that even kids had to find jobs or they’d starve. Also, it was very easy to get ill and there was no-one to help you if you did and lots of people died.
Meet Nellie is a mixture of happy and sad. There are four books in this series and this is the first book. I want to read the others because this one was so interesting.
Who played with a Dangerous Toy and suffered a Catastrophe of considerable Dimensions
by Hilaire Belloc
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When George’s Grandmamma was told
That George had been as good as gold,
She promised in the afternoon
To buy him an Immense BALLOON.
And so she did; but when it came,
It got into the candle flame,
And being of a dangerous sort
Exploded with a loud report!
The lights went out! The windows broke!
The room was filled with reeking smoke.
And in the darkness shrieks and yells
Were mingled with electric bells,
And falling masonry and groans,
And crunching, as of broken bones,
And dreadful shrieks, when, worst of all,
The house itself began to fall!
It tottered, shuddering to and fro,
Then crashed into the street below —
Which happened to be Savile Row.
When help arrived, among the dead
Were Cousin Mary, Little Fred,
The Footmen (both of them), the Groom,
The man that cleaned the Billiard-Room,
The Chaplain, and the Still-Room Maid.
And I am dreadfully afraid
That Monsieur Champignon, the Chef,
Will now be permanently deaf —
And both his aides are much the same;
While George, who was in part to blame,
Received, you will regret to hear,
A nasty lump behind the ear.
MORAL:
The moral is that little boys
Should not be given dangerous toys.
How to make small things with Violet Mackerel by Anna Branford, ill. Sarah Davis, photography by Cath Muscat, ISBN 9781922179401, Walker Books Australia
REVIEWED BY MATILDA, 8, WA
Matilda borrowed this book from her local library.
When I saw this book I got really, really excited because it’s based on the small things that Violet Mackerel likes to make and it tells you how to make them yourself. My favourite thing in the book is the leaf necklace with a secret pocket.
It gives you very good instructions for how to make everything. I wanted to make the shining sun ring except I don’t have a darning needle yet. But I made some of the other things like a wrist warmer and I made my Mum one of the pouches for a Mother’s Day present and she loved it. I also made one of the matchbox drawers, it was really cool. I also made a seasonal pencil topper, dangling day-counter using butterflies, and the notebook.
The matchbox drawers I made
The little pouch I made
My favourite thing I made from the book was the pouch.
Ages 6+ will like this book. You should read it if you like small things and if you’d like to know more things about Violet Mackerel.
It’s time for our team of keen readers* to share their TOP READS for the month — the best book each of them read during June 2014. If you’re after a good book, they recommend the following titles!
Geoffrey McSkimming is the author of Ogre in a Toga and Other Perverse Verses, the Cairo Jim chronicles, and the Phyllis Wong books. Today he is visiting to talk about writing and his new book Phyllis Wong and the Return of the Conjuror. Welcome!
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Can you tell us a bit about where you live?
I divide my time between two places: Sydney, where I live in an old apartment by the water, only a short ferry ride to the Sydney Opera House and the city, and the second place is Cawdor in Scotland.
I write the Phyllis Wong books in both places (in Scotland we light the fire in the old stone cottage we stay in, and it’s the perfect place to lock myself away and travel into Phyllis’s world).
This is your second Phyllis Wong book. Is writing the second book of a series very different from writing the first book?
Yes and no. In Phyllis Wong and the Return of the Conjuror, Phyllis’s world opens up in huge new ways that she has never encountered before. She discovers magic far greater than the magic she has known. So that meant that because of what happens in the second book (and also in the third mystery, which I’m finishing at the moment), the story is very different from the first, even though many of the characters from Phyllis Wong and the Forgotten Secrets of Mr Okyto reappear in the second story.
But the overall atmosphere of Phyllis’s world from the first book is still there — the friends and neighbours, the places she visits in the city, the humour and the suspense. And the unexpected.
What gave you the idea for the Phyllis Wong books?
My publisher at Allen & Unwin, Anna McFarlane, got in touch with my agent and asked whether I’d like to write a novel for A&U. I hadn’t written a novel for a while, after having completed the 19 volume Cairo Jim chronicles; I’d been writing other things — character-based tours for the Art Gallery of NSW and a performance piece based on Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
At about this time I’d come into contact with Australia’s leading female magician, Sue-Anne Webster, and I was publishing, in a magazine, a regular series of magic tricks she’d written. I’d also been using stage magic in the Hamlet presentation, which I performed for a while. Anna McFarlane became aware of all of this and when she asked whether I’d like to write a novel, the idea of a young girl magician came slowly to mind. The character of Phyllis has developed (and is developing) with the more I learn about magic from Sue-Anne (I don’t know the secrets behind the tricks; I don’t want to!) … it’s so true that magicians think in ways very different to most other folk, and I’ve learnt that from knowing Sue-Anne as well. It’s this way of thinking that propels Phyllis through the amazing mysteries she encounters.
Do you prefer to write with pen and paper, or using a computer/laptop?
Both. I make lots and lots of notes by hand in my notebooks, but I write the stories onto the laptop, simply because when I’m in the full force of the story I can write faster on the keyboard than with a pen.
What do you like to do when you are not writing?
Reading. I read lots, mainly old crime and detective novels. I never watch TV. I like to go for long walks (that’s great for sorting out story problems often), and we go to the pictures usually once a week — there’s a glorious art deco cinema nearby and it’s the perfect place to escape!
Did you have a favourite author when you were growing up?
I’m still trying to work out what growing up involves, but when I was younger I liked Ray Bradbury’s stories and Roald Dahl’s and Tolkien’s. Later on I read Shakespeare (and acted in some of his plays when I worked, long ago, as a professional actor), Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Agatha Christie and a swag of Golden Age detective novel writers.
Do you have any advice for young writers?
Read lots.
Always carry a notebook around with you and jot every idea down, no matter how silly or little it might seem at the time. You never know when one of those little ideas will become a gem!
Listen and watch and soak up the atmosphere around you all the time.
Try to write a little bit every day (or a lot if you can manage it).
Enjoy the wonderful craft of scribbling. Have fun!
Are you working on any new projects at the moment and if so, are you able to tell us a bit about them?
I’m finishingthe third Phyllis Wong mystery and I’ve just started on the fourth. I’m having a ball finding the things that Phyllis discovers … with the new magic she finds in Phyllis Wong and the Return of the Conjuror, it enables her to try to solve crimes and mysteries that have started at various times way back in history and which have consequences for us today. I love the fun and the intrigue and I really enjoy uncovering things from the past that are, to use a robust cliché, stranger than fiction …
Is there is anything you would like to add?
The only thing I can add is to always remember: there is no such thing as a wicked gherkin.
Bully on the Bus by Kathryn Apel, ISBN 9780702253287, UQP
REVIEWED BY JOSEPH, 10, WA
A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.
This book is a cross between a kids’ novel and a poem book. (This means it’s a verse novel.) This is the first verse novel that I’ve ever read.
It’s about a young boy called Leroy who is getting bullied on the bus by a high school student called DJ. Leroy is getting scared of DJ and doesn’t want to go to school on the bus any more because of DJ. Leroy is left shattered after he makes a special green monster cupcake for his teacher and DJ finds it in his lunch box, starts eating it, and smashes it on the floor of the bus. He needs to do something about DJ. But what?
I liked how each chapter was a poem and had its own title. I forgot it was a verse novel halfway through and I was very worried for Leroy and couldn’t stop reading. I will definitely read it again.
After reading Bully on the Bus I would like to read more verse novels and maybe try writing one too. I would recommend this book to kids in years 1 to 4 and their teachers — especially the kids because it teaches them about bullying.
alphabetsoup.net.au 