The Third Form at St Clare’s by Enid Blyton, Hachette Children’s Books, ISBN 9781444930030
Aashi reviewed her own copy of this book.
School days at St. Clare’s are never dull for Patricia and Isabel O’Sullivan.
When the mistresses announce that the third form shall be running their production, trouble starts. However, that’s only the beginning of their problems! Will the show still go on? But despite all the chaos pranks are still being pulled on poor Mam’zelle, the French mistress.
I adored The Third Form at St. Clare’s, a fantastic book. The book is full of surprises, mischief, jokes, and mysteries. I rate it a five out of five.
However, I wasn’t the only person who thought so. Here are some quotes from other readers …
'A great story with some new characters along the way.'
by Felicity
'A great book. Never bores you.'
by Phoenix
'I loved this series, it's one of my childhood favourites.'
by Bhavya
I enjoyed this great book and it made for a spectacular read. I hope you read it too and like it.
Chenée Marrapodi is an author and journalist who has danced ballet and jazz her whole life, loving the stories that can be created through movement. Today we’re pleased to be talking to Chenée about her debut novel One Wrong Turn.
The publisher provided Alphabet Soup with a review copy of One Wrong Turn.
From the publisher:
Amelia is a ballerina on the rise — she’s talented, dedicated and set to star in the lead role of the annual production. But when Valentina arrives from Italy and joins the ballet academy, the competition gets fierce. Can Amelia outshine Valentina and keep her place in the spotlight?
At your book launch, you mentioned going to ballet classes in Australia and in Italy. Do you have a memorable ballet performance you were in when you were young?
My first ballet performance was definitely a standout. I was a sheep and two farmers had to shear our wool on stage!
It’s funny to look back at now, but at the time I was so disappointed because in the previous year’s concert the girls got to be fairies.
What is your all-time favourite ballet production? ( … Would it be Cinderella?)
Cinderella is definitely one of my favourite ballet productions, which is one of the reasons it features in One Wrong Turn. There’s something special about seeing a familiar story brought to life on stage. I find it easier to get lost in the beauty of the dance because I already know the narrative so well.
I particularly love WA Ballet’s production of Cinderella, which is described by Amelia in my novel. Amelia talks about getting to ride on Cinderella’s coach as a young child, which is something that kids actually get to do in WA Ballet’s performance. It’s really special to watch!
In particular, I love watching the Step Sisters. They are hilarious and always steal the show. I once saw one of the sisters do tap dancing on her toes in pointe shoes. I still don’t know how she managed to do it!
Did you need to do any research while you were writing One Wrong Turn? Or did your experiences growing up cover everything you needed to get your story down?
Most of the story was inspired by my own experiences in dance classes. Some of Miss Lily’s funny corrections were things I’d heard my own teachers say over the years. Given I was never training for a career in ballet, I did chat to a couple of professional dancers to make sure the amount of training my characters were doing was realistic.
Valentina’s Italian family and traditions were also inspired by my own experiences. I’m Italo-Australian and grew up with big family meals and traditions like sauce and sausage making days. Valentina’s house is actually based on my Nonna’s and features some of the quirky pictures that used to hang on her walls.
I also lived in Italy for a while and danced at a small school while I was over there. Like Valentina, I couldn’t translate my teacher’s corrections while I was dancing. I found it too hard to remember choreography, listen to music and translate corrections in a foreign language at the same time. It took my teacher a whole year to figure out my secret!
Despite being fluent in Italian, I got one of my good friends in Italy to double check the Italian phrases in the novel. I don’t speak the language as much as I used to and I’m a little bit rusty. The last thing I wanted was an error forever printed in my book!
What’s the worst writing tip you’ve ever been given?
“Edit the story as you go.”
It might work for some people, but it doesn’t work for me. If I edit as I go, I get too fixated on trying to make every sentence perfect. It makes the whole task feel too overwhelming and I never make it to the end. Instead, I find it better to write a messy and fast first draft. I don’t reread my work until I make it all the way to the end of the story. It’s much easier to edit a messy page than a blank one.
Can you tell us a little about what you’re working on next?
I’m really excited to be working on a sequel to One Wrong Turn. It’s great fun being back at the ballet academy. You can expect the same characters, with a couple of new additions. There’ll also be lots of dancing (including a different style), fun, friendship, a tiny bit of romance and some very big challenges for everyone to overcome.
One Wrong Turn is out now! Ask for it at your favourite local bookshop or local library.
One Wrong Turn by Chenée Marrapodi, Fremantle Press, ISBN 9781760992439
Hannah received a review copy of this title.
Amelia wants to get the lead role in a ballet concert but there’s a new girl (Valentina) who’s really good, so it will be harder for Amelia to get the lead role. Valentina’s family doesn’t really understand ballet and when rehearsals start it might be a problem for the show if Valentina has to stop ballet.
The book had a few Italian words. I thought it was cool because in Valentina’s family they were talking to each other in Italian. Sometimes when Valentina was talking to her family the book didn’t tell us what they were saying. But if Valentina used Italian words when she was speaking with her friends, she would give the words in English as well. So if I kept reading it told me what she said.
I liked the book because, even though it was a long book with small writing, the more I read the easier the book got. I still really liked it because I really like dancing and I wanted to get to the showcase at the end! I don’t do ballet but I do hip hop and jazz. Kids who like ballet, or any kind of dancing, will enjoy this book and see how hard it is to do ballet well.
Carina promised her Dad that they would find a Moon Tree together. Sadly Carina’s Dad passes away before they get to do so, so Carina is more determined than ever to find it herself.
After moving to the Otaway Ranges, Carina believes that there is a Moon Tree in a nearby forest. Carina has a strange and mystical encounter with a black cockatoo in the forest who she thinks may be magical. Will the magic lead Carina to find a Moon Tree?
I rate this book 7/10 because I really enjoy stories about nature, love and the power of family connection. It’s suitable for ages 9+.
Dianne Wolfer lives on the south coast of Western Australia, but she grew up in Melbourne, Bangkok and Albury. Dianne writes picture books, novels for children and teenagers, and nonfiction for all ages. Today we’re chatting to Dianne about her latest novel Scout and the Rescue Dogs, illustrated by Tony Flowers.
The publisher provided Alphabet Soup with a reading copy of Scout and the Rescue Dogs.
The summer holidays have finally arrived and Scout can’t wait for her adventure in the big rig with Dad. They’re on a mission to deliver donations of dog food to animal rescue shelters right across the state. But Scout and her dad get more than they’ve bargained for. It’s bushfire season – and it’s not just the dogs who need rescuing …
You have a rescue dog yourself, can you tell us a bit about Harry?
I’m always happy to talk about our beautiful rescue boy. His personality inspired aspects of a previous book, The Dog with Seven Names, and now he has inspired another!
We saw Harry on the SAFE rescue site ten years ago. He was huddled in a corner with a plastic cone around his head looking very sad and lonely. Harry was found running in the street. He’d been badly treated and was a terrified, little fellow. He had many fear triggers. When we were driving to collect him, another dog attacked Harry, so when we first met him, he had a nasty gash across his neck. We brought him home and truckloads of love soon helped him settle and trust people again. He’s had a good life since then, being walked, and spoilt. This past winter he enjoyed a road trip to Broome where he swam at the beach every day. Our grown-up kids reckon Harry is the favourite child.
Is the character Scout based on anyone you know?
No, however aspects of myself, my friends and family have found their way into the story. Like Scout, I love dogs and animals and was distressed by the impacts of the 2019/2020 bushfires on wildlife and our forests.
I’d completed a read-through draft of the story when terrible fires broke out in many of the towns Scout visits. It happened around Christmas, the same time as my novel. I had to decide whether to change my settings or include the fires. My family was impacted by ‘Black Summer’, so I did the latter. Like Scout I experienced hellish orange skies and weeks of toxic air when I stayed with my mother in Albury. My sister evacuated her home in the Snowy Mountains. Before leaving she put out dozens of water trays for the birds and insects. My cousin’s husband and daughter fought huge, horrific walls of flames at Corryong, and the truck convoy taking hay to starving cattle was inspired by true events. I grew up near Scout’s Beechworth home and swam at Woolshed Falls and Lake Hume. My friends lived in Howlong and Burrumbuttock. The places in Scout’s story are all very familiar to me.
Have you been in a rig?
Not properly. I do a lot of country driving and was inspired by truckies during Covid, the unsung heroes who kept our country functioning. I’ve often parked beside big rigs and peered up into the cabins. Creating truck-driving characters was fun. Whenever I see a dog in a truck, I ask the driver if I can take a photo for my collection. There are some very cute truck dogs on the ‘Scout’ page of my website.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
Books take a long time from idea to publication, so I usually have a few things on the go. In Feb 2024, a new edition of Granny Grommet and Me will be published (illustrated by Karen Blair). It’s been out of print for several years so I can’t wait for the grannies to surf again. I’m also looking forward to the publication of a picture book with my friend and fabulous illustrator, Frané Lessac. It’s about cattle mustering in northern Australia and was inspired by the lovely Brahman cattle I saw in the Kimberley. A longer project: this year I’ve been researching an inspirational Australian aviator who achieved many things in her short life, but I don’t want to say more until I finish a read-through draft. I’ve written about 12,500 words and so I’m getting closer … It’s due for release late 2024 or early 2025. And I’m also thrilled to have a set of haiku coming out in the 2024 poetry collection Right Way Down and Other Poems. 2024 looks like being an exciting year.
Do you have a tip for young writers who would like to write a story set in real life?
Real life inspires many of my stories. I often take a story spark from history or my life then use my imagination to weave a story around it. That can vary from surfing grannies in Albany (Granny Grommet and Me) to a wartime air raid (The Dog with Seven Names) or the only horse to return from WWI (The Last Light Horse). Or Scout!
My advice for writers is make time to write. Take lots of notes and get down a first draft, no matter how rough, without questioning yourself or overthinking it. Write the beginning and end, with dot point chapters in between, then join those dots. Once you have that first draft you can edit and rework it. Your characters might even take you in another direction. I do dozens and dozens of drafts. If you get stuck, put that story aside for a few weeks and work on another one. Don’t give up.
Scout and the Rescue Dogs is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
It’s the Sound of the Thing by Maxine Beneba Clarke, Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing, ISBN 9781761212123
REVIEWED BY NINA, 10, NSW. Nina received a review copy of this book.
Maxine Beneba Clarke’s book It’s the Sound of the Thing is a stunning collection of 100 poems that features limericks, haikus, sonnets, tongue twisters, funny poems, serious poems any type of poem you could think of. The ideas for the poems are creative and fantastic! They are about all sorts of things (a messy room, your grannies dancing, phones, teenagers and more).
Good for readers of all ages but best suited for ages 8-12 years old. It makes you wonder what type of poem will come next.
I personally rate this book 10/10. I would highly recommend reading it.
Shivaun Plozza is an award-winning writer for children and young adults. She lives in Geelong with her cat, Fenchurch. Today we’re thrilled to chat to Shivaun about her latest book Meet Me at the Moon Tree.
The publisher provided Alphabet Soup with a reading copy of Meet Me at the Moon Tree.
From the publisher:
For Carina Sugden, nothing is more special than a moon tree – a tree grown from the seeds taken on the Apollo 14 mission into space. Her father taught her everything she knows about them. But he passed away before they found one together. When Mum relocates the family to the Otway Ranges, Carina becomes determined to find a moon tree on her own. After a mysterious encounter with a black cockatoo, Carina realises there’s magic in this forest. And if magic exists, anything is possible, like seeing her dad one last time…
How did you first hear about moon trees?
I was researching the world’s strangest trees for a story when I came across a reference to ‘moon trees’. Just the name ‘moon trees’ sounded so fascinating to me so I knew I had to discover everything about them. When I learnt their history I threw away my original idea and began working on Meet Me at the Moon Tree. It just goes to show how helpful research is (as well as allowing yourself to follow whatever sparks your curiosity!) to creative writing.
Trees (many kinds!) feature strongly in the story. Were you already knowledgeable in this area or did you need to do some research?
I’ve always been interested in trees but I wasn’t at all knowledgeable about the different species or the many interesting facts I learnt about them along the way (such as the fact that they talk to each other!). I definitely had to do a lot of research. If anyone is interested in learning more about trees I’d highly recommend Can You Hear the Trees Talking by Peter Wohlleben.
Grief is at the centre of this story. Was this part of your plan for the book when you sat down to write the first draft or did it arise during the writing?
From the beginning I knew that I wanted to write a story about a girl looking for a moon tree so I asked myself why she was looking: why did finding a moon tree matter so much to Carina? I wanted the reader to desperately want her to find one, as much as she wanted to find one herself, so it made sense for it to matter because of a promise she’d made to her much beloved father.
Do you have a tip for young writers who’d like to write stories with real-life settings?
One thing that helps is to treat your setting like it’s a character. Often we think about how we can bring our characters to life but we don’t always think about bringing the setting to life—we just assume our readers will know what we’re talking about when we write that our characters walked down a street or entered the kitchen. But does every street look the same? How about every kitchen? All settings, like people, are distinct so find out what makes that setting distinct and bring it to life on the page.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the shift from childhood into the tween years and how it can create tension in friendships if each friend is moving at a very different pace. So I’m writing about that.
Meet Me at the Moon Treeis out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
Mars Underground by HM Waugh, A&U Children’s, ISBN 9781761067105
Gabriel received a review copy of this book.
Mars Underground is a sequel to Mars Awakens written by HM Waugh. The main characters Dee, Holt and Chayse live in the Davinci colony on Mars. The colony will soon die out due to radiation-tainted genetics. However, there is hope. Holt has a set of special genetics untainted by radiation. Half a separate colony carries these genetics – the Newtonians, where Holt and Chayse originally came from in the first book. The only problem is the Newtonians are halfway around the world. Distance is the least of their concerns though. Others block the way. The Others are mutated bacteria that cause human bodies to malfunction. On top of that, no one has tried to contact the Newtonians for a long time. Unfortunately, Holt and Chayse are kept by the Davicians for their genes in “capture”. This is because Holt is an X and Chayse’s genes have no trace of radiation. It’s almost like Mars is trying to stop them, still Holt, Dee and Chase embark on this quest. In a world full of enemies can they survive the complex web of tunnels in order to travel and escape?
Will Dee, Holt and Chayse reach the Newtonians in time to save the Davinci colony? Can they escape the tight grasp of the Davinci? Why is there an age-old vendetta between the two settlements? Why have they been trained to hate each other? Will the Newtonians help the Davincians who are seen to be taller, have better senses, and breathe the air of Mars without a “Dome”?
Challenge after challenge is loaded into this action-packed novel. I recommend this book for children ages 8–14 who love suspense, Sci-Fi and dystopian books. I would rate this book highly as there is a complex story and subject that is engaging. I couldn’t put the book down until I finished it up late in the night. You can buy a hard copy book or download an ebook.
Winterkill by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, Scholastic, ISBN 9781338831412
Qiao reviews her own copy of this book.
In 1930 an attack strike on Kharkiv, Ukraine, brings the bitter wind of early winter. It is a battle not only against famine but also against the Soviet Union’s dictatorship.
Twelve-year-old Nyl, a courageous and intrepid boy, lived on a farm in Ukraine with his parents, aunt, uncle, brother and sister. Everything was peaceful and tranquil until the advent of Stalin, the Soviet Union’s dictator, desiring to take over the farms of Ukrainian families. His lies to the civilians promising a better-off life and a surge of crop yields, if the farmers were willing to spare their farms, were just the beginning of his reigning plot. Nyl’s family depended on the yearly harvest season for food. Without the farm, their life barely scraped by. Even worse, the Soviet Russian soldiers were compelling the villagers to hand in their food by threatening and killing them. Nyl and his family were desperate to flee and embarked on an escape journey from the village to a safer place. It sounded like a fabulous plan but not everyone was lucky enough to make it out of Stalin’s grip.
An encounter with a Canadian girl called Alice altered Nyl’s life. Alice’s first intention in coming to Ukraine with her father was to work for Stalin. She later realized that Stalin was starving people in Ukraine instead of alleviating farmers’ work by providing them with modern tractors. It was a nightmare for her and her father, so they decided to help Nyl escape from this tragic place. Alice’s father was determined to expose Stalin’s lie to the world, hoping to gain help from other countries. Would it be a success, or would it be an act of death?
Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, a Ukrainian Canadian author, presents the word Holodomor “A murder by hunger” through a story for children. When I read Winterkill, my eyes were glued to the book, reluctant to miss any detail. It was as if every page was the climax, building up the tension and making my heart thump. With ingenious language, her writings about the historical event prompted more than a dozen countries to acknowledge the Holodomor as a genocide. It was as if the book was magical. It gifted me with powers and strength. As Nyl has said in the book, “Stalin hadn’t killed me, he just made me stronger.”
Wendy Orr is an award-winning author with 40 books for children, teenagers and adults Her books have been published in 29 languages and her Nim’s Island books were made into movies. We’re thrilled to be talking to Wendy about her latest book – Honey and the Valley of Horses.
From the publisher:
When Honey was four and her brother Rumi was a tiny baby, her family loaded up their converted ice-cream-van-camper and drove away from all they knew, as an illness swept the sad wide world. High in the mountains, they crossed a bridge to follow a mysterious herd of enchanted horses into a sheltered valley. The bridge and the track disappeared behind them – and now they are trapped in paradise.
The magical horses are the stars of the book. Is Moongold based on a horse you’ve known?
He’s a combination of our family’s first horse, Biddy, who was an American quarter horse with a touch of Thoroughbred, and my father in law’s palomino Australian stock horse, Pancho. Biddy was over 12 when we got her; I was ten, my sister eight and my brother three, and she behaved differently with each of us, deciding just how much she had to look after us. So she was always completely trustworthy with my little brother, but once I’d learned to ride she’d test me quite a bit – and when we did a paper route for a while, she got bored with doing the same ride every day and started throwing me every time! Pancho was probably the best trained horse I’ve ever ridden, an absolute delight to ride though a very spirited stallion. He had a fantastically smooth gallop, which was as wonderful to watch as to ride, and when he was galloping loose in his paddock, loved to race towards something and stop dead or spin around just before he hit it. And there’s a bit of my own horse Tala, who I got when I was fourteen. She was an enormous mostly Standardbred, who was quite neurotic and very flighty, but always tuned in to my moods and would be very affectionate and gentle if I was upset.
Honey’s family are living in a sort of paradise, but the catch is that they also face isolation and have to find their own way to survive. Was your storytelling influenced by Australia’s recent lockdowns?
Absolutely. Although we live in a rural area, we were classified as metropolitan Melbourne for the purpose of lockdowns, so it was very strict and long. My son and his wife and toddlers lived with us for the first year, but when they moved out they were more than 5 km away so for long periods we weren’t able to see them, or my daughter and her toddlers, who were on the other side of Melbourne. My parents and siblings were in Canada, and with the borders closed for so long I was very aware that I might never see my parents again – which in fact happened, as my dad became ill and died during 2021. So the isolation, the sense of not being able to see people we loved, and also the general fear and anxiety during this time were a crucial part of forming this book. The good thing is that it meant it was all the more important to create a fun and adventurous paradise for the family to escape to. It was certainly very important to me to escape to it while I was writing! And I hope that the reader will enjoy that escape too. We all need special places in our lives and our minds.
What did your editor think about you sending the editor in the book (Mum) off in an ice-cream van to the unfindable Valley of Horses?
She loved it! At first she was worried that no one would know what an editor does, so I hope I explained that during the book. But she loved escaping to the valley too, which made life easier for me.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
I have several things which range from already in a first draft, to an idea I’m quite excited about but don’t know very much about yet. All I can say right now is that I love thinking about how many thousands of people we’re all descended from. Each one of them had their own story – which is quite mindblowing when you think about it!
Do you have a tip for young writers who’d like to write stories with a touch of magic?
If you’re going to use a touch of magic, you need to have clues that something strange could happen, right from the start. It doesn’t need to be much: in Honey and the Valley of Horses I start with the sentence, ‘In the mountains there was a valley, and in the valley were the horses.’
The rhythm of that sentence suggests that this is a story-telling type of story, not a realistic ‘kids going to school’ type of story. Even saying, ‘the horses’ suggests something different than if I’d said, ‘There was a valley in the mountains, and lots of horses lived there.’ Those could be any horses, but saying ‘the horses’ suggests there’s something special.
Making up a world that has a bit of magic means that you can do anything you like – but it doesn’t mean that there are no rules. You need to work out what the rules are for your magic. In this book, the horses certainly have some kind of mysterious magic, and are stronger and faster than other horses – but they are still horses. For example, they can’t talk or fly. You could write it so they do talk or fly, but you would need to show that from the start, or if you didn’t want them to do it until the end, you could have a detail early in the story so that it made sense if they flew when they absolutely needed to. For example there might be a certain grass that people said would make horses fly if they ate it, or there might be old stories about a horse that flew, and people have noticed that this horse looks just like her ancestor, with the white snip above the left fetlock… Just some little hints.
Everything that isn’t magic has to make sense. Unless it’s part of the magic, water can’t run uphill, the sun rises in the east, people and animals need food, water and sleep…
Any touches of fantasy need to be significant for the story. They need to show the reader something important about a character, whether good or bad; or about the place; or they need to move the plot along. If you have a scene you really want to write – a purple sun that shines at night; birds standing still while dogs sing, whatever your imagination has built for you – you can use it as long as you work out why it belongs in the story. Working out the reason might take your story in a different direction, but that’s okay too.
If you roll all these tips into one, it would be, ‘Your story has to make sense right through. If magic is going to help resolve the problems, it needs to be hinted at from the beginning. And it should always be your character who actually solves the problem, whether it’s by being brave enough to dare to use a power, or by passing a test that makes a power appears, or by harnessing a power to do the right thing. But definitely try to avoid having a realistic character in a difficult but realistic situation, when suddenly at the end of the story, Abracadabra! everything is magically solved.
Also, don’t forget that good stories usually have many drafts. If you really liked that Abracadabra! scene you can keep it. You just need to go back and weave in some hints earlier in the story.
But don’t forget the most important writing tip of all, no matter what genre: Have fun, play with your story, and see what happens!
Honey and the Valley of Horses is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
Are you in Melbourne? You can meet the author and hear her talking about Honey and the Valley of Horses! 2pm, Saturday, 26 August 2023 at Readings Kids in Carlton. Tickets are free but bookings are essential.
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