The Kane Chronicles: The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan, Penguin UK, ISBN 9780141325507
Olivia reviews her own copy of this title.
The Red Pyramid is a fascinating and enchanting book about two siblings who have their lives turned upside down as they embark on an adventure of Egyptian gods, magicians, and magic. Sadie and Carter Kane, siblings nothing alike, shape the future of the world they know. Accompanied by striking cat goddess Bast, and prickly magician Zia, the quartet only have a couple of days to stop Set, god of evil, from the destroying the whole of Earth. Will Set prevail and destroy the Earth? Or will Sadie, Carter, Bast and Zia succeed and stop Set?
My favourite part of this novel is when Sadie, Carter Bast, and Zia fight off the scorpion goddess Serqet. Zia places Sadie and Carter in a magic force field while she and Bast fight off the scorpions. I like this part because it demonstrates intriguing forms of magic, and shows that weak things can be strong, as Zia fights with ribbons.
I would give this book a 10 out of 10 and would especially recommend this volume to readers ages 10 and above. The Kane Chronicles will blow Percy Jackson fans away. Move over Harry Potter, here comes The Kane Chronicles!
Skye Blackburn-Lang: Eating bugs for the planet by Dianne Wolfer, Wild Dingo Press, ISBN 9781925893694
The publisher provided a review copy of this book.
Have you ever eaten a bug cookie? Well, Skye Blackburn-Lang has.
As the oldest child, Skye was curious about animals that when she was younger she even tried to eat a snail! She lived in Port Macquarie and Sydney where she took home insects to investigate and observe. Skye went to a museum on insects where she found jars of insects and spiders stacked to the ceiling. That’s when she knew that she wanted to be an entomologist. She was so interested in insects and spiders that she had a pet tarantula called Fluffy and she even kept its exoskeleton mounted in a frame!
This book is interesting because it is about Skye’s childhood and how she mixes food science and bugs to make sustainable food. Unlike the other books in this series this book is colourful, has photographs of insects and spiders and has two insect recipes at the end. I thought it was lovely.
I rate this book 10/10. I recommend this for children above 7 years old and those who like bugs.
REVIEWED BY OLIVIA, 9, WINNIPEG, MANNITOBA, CANADA
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, Penguin, ISBN 9780141329994
Olivia reviewed her own copy of this book.
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief is an interesting, intriguing, and exciting book about two demigods (kids with one godly parent and one mortal parent) and a satyr (half human, half goat) Percy, Annabeth, and Grover, who embark on a journey to get back Zeus’s lightning bolt. Zeus, the god of the sky, has had his master lightning bolt stolen. Zeus blames his brother, Poseidon, god of the sea, Percy’s dad. Can Zeus get his lightning bolt back? Is Poseidon responsible for Zeus’s missing bolt?
My favorite part of this story is when Percy meets Annabeth, where Annabeth tells Percy that he drools when he sleeps. This is my favorite part because it’s hilarious and hysterical.
My favourite character is Annabeth, because she is prepared for anything, and she is very smart. I’d rate this a 20 out of 20 because it is comedic, exciting, and makes you want to read it. I’d recommend it to ages ten and up.
HM Waugh is the author of books for children and young adults. She’s also an environmental scientist and an educator with a love of wild places and high mountains. This has led to icy feet and sunburnt cheeks in magical countries like New Zealand, Nepal, Bolivia and Switzerland! Her latest book is book 2 of a duology: Mars Underground, the page-turning sequel to Mars Awakens.
From the publisher:
Dee, Holt and Chayse set out to cross the planet via a network of subterranean tunnels. Can they reach it without encountering the Others – the sinister biocloud they’ve been running from? And if they make it, can they convince the Newtonians to work with Davinci – those they’ve been trained to hate?
Did you set out to write these books as a duology or did the idea for a second book come after you’d finished writing Mars Awakens?
I am not what you’d call an awesome planner – I start a project by thinking up a character or two, and the details of their world, and I have a basic idea of what the plot might be, but I work the rest out as I write. If you’ve heard of plotters (who plot everything out before) and pantsers (who plan nothing and write ‘by the seat of their pants’), I’m a hybrid of the two, a plantser. So I was happily plantsing along, still writing Mars Awakens, when one day it hit me: there needed to be two books to finish this properly. So the duology was born.
This is your first published series. How did you find writing a sequel as compared to writing Book 1?
Completely different! In some ways it was easier, and in other ways: much harder!
The easier bits were things like the characters and the world – they were already there in my head, fully formed. I knew the main characters like they were my mates. I knew what they’d say, how they’d act. Sometimes, when I’m starting on a new idea, I might get a big way through a first draft and have to rewrite it because the characters finally come alive for me (this happened about 20,000 words into the first draft of Mars Awakens!). But I didn’t have that sort of issue with Mars Underground. Also, all the nitty gritty work of world building had already been done (thanks, Past Me!) so I just got to have super fun expanding it to places I hadn’t been yet. That was all awesome.
Some things were definitely harder, though. I felt this expectation that I’d never really felt before. There were all these readers who had connected with Dee and Holt’s story and were keen to see how it ended. Aaah! I didn’t want to let them down! Plus, I had a deadline! For all my other books I’d already written a full manuscript before signing a contract. But suddenly I had to write an entire sequel by a certain date? Double aaah!
I actually wrote 50,000 words of the sequel before Mars Awakens had been released, but when I picked it up again months later I knew it wasn’t right. And I’m not saying that like, ‘This isn’t quite right, I need to work on it a lot.’ I mean I archived the whole thing. Gone. Fresh document page. Start again from scratch. I re-read Mars Awakens to remind myself of the voice, and then launched into writing an entirely new sequel. And that became Mars Underground. I loved the draft so much, but I was still terrified there would be something missing. So I did multiple happy dances when my publisher came back with several big thumbs up! Yay!
Mars Underground involves your characters travelling via tunnels and caves on Mars, were their adventures inspired by caving adventures of your own?
I love pulling inspiration from real life, so their adventures were like a mix of my own, and the sort of caving and rafting adventures I’d love to have!
I remember going caving on a school holiday camp when I was in my early teens, shuffling on my stomach, so tight to the ground, to get to this special crystal cave. My helmet kept getting jammed, the ceiling was so low. And the crystals were protected behind this mouldering underground gate, so rusty the key could barely work. It was amazing! But once we’d crawled back out, we realised our camp leaders had already decided to leave. Without us. Everyone had climbed up and out, we could see them up by the pinprick of daylight that was the entrance, about to lock the main gates! I’m sure they would’ve realised we were missing before starting the bus, but what an adrenaline hit to be almost left behind in that deep wintry place, our torches running low!
Another experience I drew on was rafting what they call the God River, in Peru. Once we’d got onto the river, the gorge walls rose so high the only way out was through days of rafting. Changed your mind about going? Too bad! It was tough and it was amazing and I loved it! We got to one huge rapid, and the guide told me a girl had been lost there the previous year. I was like, ‘Did they find her again?’ and he looked at me and said, ‘Lost, like dead.’ That definitely made me realise exactly what I’d signed up to do.
So I tried to inject some of that danger and beauty and excitement into my characters’ adventures.
You ran a writing competition for young writers in 2022 and the winner had a character named after them in Mars Underground (Alice!). Did you already have a character ready and waiting to be named, or did you write the character into the plot while you were finishing writing the novel?
I had a few characters I knew I could change the names for, but I waited to see who’d won and what they’d written before I chose which character I’d use. And during editing I changed that character around to be even more awesome!
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
As I write this, it’s halfway through July which means I’m deep in writing a project during Camp NaNoWriMo. I love writing with NaNoWriMo (the National Novel Writing Month) because it really gets me into the flow of my writing. Plus, I LOVE a good graph, and NaNo track my progress and give me badges and pep talks too! Normally I’d try to write 50,000 words in the month, but this month I’m aiming for 30,000 because I was on holiday for the first week.
Anyway, I’m loving this project so much. Dangerous new planet. Kids in a competition. Everyone watching their every move. A new friendship based on deception. And then something goes really wrong (of course!) and everything comes to the surface. How are they going to get out of this? It’s so. Much. Fun!
Mars Underground is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
Kate Gordon grew up in a very booky house, in a small town by the sea in Tasmania. Now she writes novels and picture books from a cottage overlooking the river and the mountain, on the Eastern Shore of Hobart. Today we’re chatting about Kate’s latest novel, Indigo in the Storm.
From the publisher:
Indigo Michael isn’t like other kids. And her mum isn’t like other mums. Life for people like them isn’t meant to have meaning – it’s just something to survive in whatever way you can. When her mum abandons her, Aster’s Aunt Noni becomes her foster parent. Suddenly Indigo has a new ‘family’ –one she didn’t ask for and isn’t even sure she wants. This is a companion novel to the CBCA Award-winning Aster’s Good, Right Things.
Indigo in the Storm is a companion book to Aster’s Good, Right Things and Xavier in the Meantime. Did you set out with a plan to write multiple books set in the same community or did the idea for the next book come to you as each book was finished?
I’m not the most organised of writers! I’m whatever it’s called when a pantser doesn’t even have any pants! Characters just tend to pop into my head and I see where they take me. Aster popped into my head fully formed and she introduced me to her friends and I fell in love with them and the town where they lived. Once I met Xavier, Indigo, Esme (and later Erika and Armelle), I just knew I had to keep “chatting” with them until their stories came too. All of which makes me sound deeply odd and like I’m trying to say that I have some preternatural spiritual talent for writing. I don’t. I just have a very active imagination and a complete lack of any planning skills!
The characters in each of these three books face big life issues and mental health challenges. Could you talk a bit about how you came to write Indigo’s story in this latest novel?
I grew up in a little town in Tassie, not unlike the one where these characters live. I went to a school in a low socioeconomic rural area. I didn’t go through the foster system myself but my school was full of kids who did and I was good friends with many of them and always wanted to help to tell their stories. I did grow up in a complicated family and I did grow up struggling to find my place in the world, something to believe in and my voice. I also grew up with undiagnosed neurodivergence, which Indigo also lives with. All of which percolated in my head like one of Esme’s marvellous creations when it came with telling Indigo’s story. I hope I’ve done it – and her, and the kids I grew up with – justice.
Your book titles suit the books so well. How do you come up with the perfect title for a book?
Oh gosh, I wish I had a good answer for that. I’m actually really terrible at titles. My working title for Aster’s Good, Right Things was Petal. Which is, obviously, terrible and would not make anyone want to read the book! I’m so lucky to have such beautiful, clever publishers who help me come up with better titles. Usually, they’re called something like Xavier Book or Indigo Book, until the last minute. Then, when I start to panic, my publishers will say something like, “Kate, have you actually read your own book? Obviously, it should be called …” And it’s spot on, every time. I’m sorry to ruin the magic! I’m basically a publishing doofus.
Alphabet Soup Interview – Indigo KG June 2023
Do you have a book you’ve read recently that you would recommend for our readers?
Anything at all by Kate Foster. She’s honestly, in my opinion, the next Australian publishing superstar. Her books grab me in a way that reminds me of how I was captivated by books when I was a kid – like Robin Klein and John Marsden. She’s got humour and depth and heart and I am in awe of her talent. There is also a new writer on the scene called Helen Edwards who blows me away with her words. Her first book comes out with Riveted Press soon and I implore everyone to get their hands on it. She’s a true talent.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on now that Indigo in the Storm is out in the world?
Well, there is another book in the universe coming out next year, featuring milk bar superstar, Esme, and then a final book in the Aster cycle, featuring Aster herself in a story that brings everyone full circle. I also have a stand-alone called My Brother, Finch, which is a mystery story set in Gothic southern Tasmania. And I am working on a book about thylacines and secret covens of girls and women in the Tasmanian bush. That one is very much a work in progress but fingers crossed it finds its place in the world. I’m just grateful to be doing what I’m doing, with the support of so many beautiful, clever people. Aside from that, I am deep in mother land, with a fiercely smart, bookish eleven-year-old and a chaos maven fourteen-month old keeping me on my toes, alongside a grumpy elderly black cat and a very silly teenage labradoodle. It really is all happening!
Indigo in the Storm is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookstore or local library.
AWESOME EXTRAS:
Read previous interviews with Kate Gordon here and here
Lizard’s Tale by Weng Wai Chan, Text Publishing, ISBN 9781925603910
Gabriel received a copy of this book to review.
Lizard’s Tale is written by Weng Wai Chan and is set before WWII in Singapore, featuring a young boy named Lizard and his best friend, Lili. Lizard’s guardian, Uncle Archie, disappears without explanation. As an orphan, Lizard barely scrapes by as he has to buy food and rent a tiny apartment, so he does odd jobs for random people and theft for Boss Man Beng.
Lizard had almost choked on his noodles. One hundred dollars! Nearly one year’s worth of rent and food.
Lizard had just got himself the dream job. All he had to do was to steal a teak box from the Raffles Hotel which belonged to a British army visitor and deliver it to the train station at 10pm. Otherwise, he would expect the worst. It couldn’t be that hard, could it?
Lizard soon dives into a world where conspiracies and secret codes thrive, buzzing around concerning the next war. How will Lizard deal with all these problems, especially since his best friend isn’t who he thought she was? Can Lizard reveal the plot in time and save his friends and other people he loves? Will he be able to succeed in foiling his enemy’s plan by himself?
I recommend this book for preteens or young kids who love history and exciting adventures. I would rate this book 9/10 as there are great themes and it’s also a family friendly book. You can find this book online on Amazon as a kindle copy or a paperback, or even in your local bookstore. Have fun reading!
Ajay Rane: Global crusader for women’s health by Deb Fitzpatrick, Wild Dingo Press, ISBN 9781925893595
The publisher provided a review copy of this book.
‘Who is Ajay Rane and why should Australians know him?’ I hear you ask curiously. He is Dr Rane and he is an advocate for women’s health. He saves women’s lives by helping women who suffer from fistula after giving birth.
It all started with Ajay’s paternal grandmother. She told Murli, Ajay’s father, to remember the work he learnt at school. Murli tried his hardest and eventually became a doctor. Then he started a hospital in his home town. This is when Ajay comes into the story. Ajay followed his dad’s footsteps and became a doctor.
One of Ajay’s patients made me cry. She was a nurse until she had a baby and she could not go to work because she had fistula after giving birth. Then her husband kicked her out of the family. What will happen to her now?
I love this extraordinary book because it takes us back to Ajay’s ancestry. I have learnt so much about Ajay Rane and his family, like when Ajay was younger he celebrated the Diwali Festival with his family. Another section that was funny was when Ajay’s brother went to the toilet in his grandmother’s place in India only to find a pig in the toilet pit.
Secret Agent Mole, Book 1: Goldfish-Finger by James Foley, Scholastic Australia, ISBN 9781761200151
Reuben received a review copy of this book.
Before I read any book I always read the blurb, and in this book parts of the blurb are just black lines, like it was an agent’s file. When I got this book I thought it would be about a mole, in a tuxedo, with a grappling hook but the hook was a plunger. And I knew it was a graphic novel.
It was what I expected because the mole had a plunger in a grappling gun – and it’s very funny.
My fave character is Max because he is always telling dad jokes, and he’s the funniest character.
I am definitely looking forward to reading Book 2 in this series because I want to see if they manage to beat Dr Nude, the naked mole rat.
This is a great read for anyone who likes comics or animals or moles or insects/bugs and funny books.
Kelly Canby is an award-winning, internationally published, illustrator and author of over two dozen books for children. Kelly was born in London, England, but has lived in Australia since the age of three. She says this is probably around the same age she started playing with pencils and crayons, and it was probably only a few years after that that she decided playing with pencils and crayons was something she wanted to do for the rest of her life. Kelly applies her quirky style to the pages of everything from picture books, to chapter books, to early reader books, to colouring books and beyond!
Today we’re talking to her about her new picture book, Timeless.
From the publisher:
Emit (whose parents turned back time to name him) is surrounded by busyness. Dad is too busy to read stories, Mum is too busy to play games and Emit’s brother and sister are simply too busy doing nothing to do anything, at all. Emit tries everything he can think of to get more time, he tries to catch it, wait for it, but it’s not until Emit tries to buy some time that he learns the secret …
Did you already have a stack of time-themed puns just begging to be turned into this book? Or did the idea for the book send you off in search of puns?
The idea for the book came first and that then sent me down into a deep, deep, pun dive. In the end I had so many puns and idioms I couldn’t use them all! A couple of favourites that didn’t make it to the final book were Emit’s street address: 5 Oak Lock Lane, and a part where Emit told his family he’d like to be a time traveller when he grew up only they ‘didn’t think there was much future in it …’ Also there was a part in the first draft where Emit sticky taped two toy ducks together to create … A time pair o’ ducks. Genius ideas, I think, but in the end they didn’t suit the story so I had to leave them out.
What is your relationship with time? (Are you usually running out of it or always ‘on time’?)
I am that person who is always horribly … early! For appointments especially. And often times 30 or 40 minutes early too because I’m so afraid of being late. But it’s not always a bad thing because it gives me some thinking time in the car, or a chance to get familiar with where I need to be, or have a cup of tea, or reply to emails or ALL of those things. It’s amazing what I can squeeze into that half hour!
Your bright illustrations in Timeless almost seem to glow. Can you tell us about how you create your illustrations?
The brightness all comes from the inks. I chose the most vibrant colours I could find and then got my fan brush (a brush shaped like a fan, of course) and splattered and flicked ink all over the page until it started to look like how I saw it in my head. I wanted the illustrations to have a lot of energy and movement, to echo how busy everyone was, and the fan brush was perfect for that. I didn’t mind at all if ink fell in odd places either because I thought it added to the chaos of being so busy. I also didn’t sketch any of the illustrations with pencil first, I just went straight in and created havoc! That’s right, this book is one great big happy accident!
Do you have a tip for kids who would like to write/illustrate their own picture book?
I definitely have a tip for illustrating and that is to not be afraid of the blank page. Ever! The important thing is to get down on that paper whatever is in your head and when you’re done, when its down, then you can edit or add to it or … throw it out if you wish! But just get something down. Usually I find not thinking about my work too much takes the pressure off and as a result my work looks alive and fresh and full of energy. Actually, that advice works for writing too.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
Right now I am trying to come up with a new idea for a picture book AND I’m working on illustrations for the fifth book in Jaclyn Moriarty’s Kingdoms & Empires series. One of those things is much harder than the other and I’ll leave you to guess which one it is (Hint: it’s the one where were I have to come up with a new idea) !!
Timeless is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
James Foley is the author-illustrator of a stack of picture books and graphic novels. His work has been published as books, in anthologies, and in magazines and newspapers. Today we’re excited to chat to James about the first book in his brand new graphic novel series, Secret Agent Mole: Goldfish-Finger.
Max is a mole on a mission. With Helen Hippo and June Bug by his side, Max must stop the evil Goldfish-Finger from stealing a priceless, solid gold fishfinger. This dangerous, top-secret mission will involve explosions, a naked mole rat, and being flushed down a giant toilet. Will Max and the team defeat the fiendish fish? Time to rock and mole!
This is book 1 of a new series. How did you decide on the main characters for this series?
The whole idea came about from a conversation with fellow author/illustrator Matt Cosgrove. His publisher Scholastic had asked me to pitch them an idea for a book series, so I called Matt for some advice. I told him, ‘you can be my mole in the organisation‘. And that’s when the idea of Max Mole popped into my head. From there it was a pretty simple task to find his friends; all teams should have a variety of skills and personalities, plus when you’re drawing them it’s good to have a variety of sizes and shapes. So I picked a bigger, tougher animal (a hippo called Helena) and a much smaller, more fragile creature (a bug called Bug) to round out Max’s team. The main villain is a naked mole rat called Dr Nude, because naked mole rats are extremely funny.
What’s your favourite graphic novel/comic book sound effect and why?
Good question. Probably any of the big, loud action ones (e.g. CRASH, SMASH, THUD, KABOOM). It usually means there’s something big and silly to draw.
Can you tell us about how you create your graphic novels?
First I write the events of the book as a series of bullet points. I put all my ideas down in order until I have enough ideas for a book. Then I write the book as a script – just like you would for a play or a film. It’s just the dialogue plus descriptions of the action. Then I lay out all the pages into a program called InDesign. This lets me see how much room the words need and how much space I have left to do the drawings. I figure out where all the panels are going to go and I start drawing the book as rough sketches straight into the program. Once all that is approved by my editor, I get started on the final artwork. I do all the black outlines in Procreate on my iPad, then I finish off all the shades of grey using Photoshop on my big Wacom Cintiq drawing tablet and my laptop. After about 6 months, I’ve got a 200 page graphic novel.
Do you have a tip for kids who want to write a graphic novel or their own comic book?
You don’t have to be a great at drawing to make a comic book; if you can draw stick figures then you can make a comic.
The most important thing when making comics is to keep the reader in mind. Comics are meant to be shared, so you need to make sure that your reader will be able to understand the story you’re trying to tell. Every piece of information the reader will need must be on the page; you won’t be able to stand over their shoulder and help them if they get lost or confused. So you have to make sure every picture is large enough and clear enough; you have to make sure all the words are neat and readable; and you need to include enough pictures in the correct order to show what’s happening. It’s as simple and as complicated as that: make sure you have clear pictures and clear words in a clear order. If you can make those three things happen, then your reader will be able to understand and enjoy your comic.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
I’ve just finished all the artwork for Secret Agent Mole book 2: The Boar Identity. That was a heap of fun! It will be out in August/September 2023.
Next up, I have to start writing the script for Secret Agent Mole book 3. Wish me luck!
Secret Agent Mole: Goldfish-Finger is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
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