September 2012 – Aussie Reviews

The Emperor's New Clothes Horse, by Tony Wilson & Sue deGennaro

‘I’d trade all these trophies for one Cristobel Cup!’

The Emperor loves horse racing, and his horses have won every ace in the land – except the Cristobel Cup. He will do anything to win one. When the Royal Trainers fail to find him the perfect horse he turns to a pair of brilliant international trainers who produce a special horse. They warn him though: only clear-thinking citizens will see the horse for what it is- a mighty racehorse. Those who are stupid will see just a wooden clothes horse.

This is a witty take on the classic story The Emperor’s New Clothes, with a clothes horse taking centre stage in this equine twist. Youngsters who haven’t heard the original will get almost as much out of the story as those who have, though the two work well together and for older children there is an opportunity for comparison of the two. Illustrations, using Copic markers and black biro are delightfully humorous. The unusual layout is also clever, with each illustration spanning the centre of each spread, and text appearing on the outer third of each page against pastel backgrounds picking up the colours of the illustrations.

Suitable for early childhood, but with applicability well into the school years.

The Emperor’s New Clothes Horse, by Tony Wilson & Sue deGennaro
Scholastic, 2012
ISBN 9781742830452

This book is available in good bookstores or online from Fishpond.

Scared Yet? by Jaye Ford

Her arm was out as she rounded the bumper, her fingers reaching for the doorhandle as she saw her reflection in the driver’s window – and a brief movement behind her.
Then a hand slammed over her mouth.

When Livia Prescott is attacked in the carpark on her way home from work, everyone tells her how brave she is. And there’s nothing for her to fear – this was a one-off attack, and she managed to fight off her attacker. It’s just another piece of bad luck in a shocking year which has seen her marriage end, her father get sicker and her business falter. At least this time she came out on top.

Or has she? As the days and weeks pass without her attacker being caught, Livia becomes increasingly aware that this not a random attack. Someone is out to get her. He starts by sending her menacing notes, then picks up the pace, dragging Livia’s family and friends into the vendetta. Livia has no idea who the stalker is or what she can do to stop him. But if she doesn’t fight back, she might lose everything.

Scared Yet? is a chillingly gripping psychological thriller. Even without the attack Liv has a lot on her plate, but when she’s attacked it seems she’s being given more to cope with than anyone could. She lives in fear not just for her own life, but for that of her precious son, as well as her ailing father and everyone she holds dear. Not knowing who is targeting her or where their next attack might come from makes her jumpy and at times irrational, yet she manages to keep going, fighting with all her reserves. She is gutsy, but also believable in her motivations and in her mistakes.

This is a page turner that will keep you guessing and shaking right to the end.

Scared Yet? by Jaye Ford
Bantam, an imprint of Random House, 2012
ISBN 9781864712001

This book is available from good bookstores or online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

Baby Tawnies, by Judy Paulson

As darkness falls, two tawny frogmouths fly into the forest to find food.
Far above the ground, four large eyes appear.
Lyla and Reggie are alone.

When their parents go out each night to hunt for food, Lyla and Reggie are alone. But instead of being afraid, or even waiting patiently, they use the time to discover what they can do for themselves – and eventually surprise their parents by learning to fly.

Baby Tawnies is a sweet picture book story about independence and courage, with a uniquely Australian take on the topic. The characters are tawny frogmouths, nocturnal Australian birds often mistaken for owls. Back of book notes provide further information about this unique bird. But it is the story which kids will enjoy. The baby tawnies are cared for by their parents, but it is when they are alone that they must find courage and support each other. It is lovely that it is the girl sibling, Lyla, who takes the lead and encourages her brother, in a subtle toast to girl power.

Also lovely is the artwork, with the characters rendered in felt with dark digital backgrounds refelcting the colours of the night. This unusual artwork is both endearing and clever.

A sweet book sure to be treasured.

Baby Tawnies, by Judy Paulson
Random House, 2012
ISBN 9781742755762

This book is available in good bookstores or online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

The Boy Under the Table, by Nicole Trope

Bein a mother was all-consuming.
There were so many mistakes you could make, so many ways to lose a child.

When Tina, a runaway teen living on the streets of the Cross, breaks her own rules and goes home with a stranger, she knows it is a dangerous thing to do. But she doesn’t expect to find something in the stranger’s house that will change her life forever. There is a boy tied up underneath the man’s kitchen table, and although Tina knows she could pretend that she saw nothing, the haunting image of that child’s face doesn’t leave her and she has to go back for him

In a distant country twon, Doug and Sarah wait for news of their son, missing for four months. A moment of innatention at the Easter Show and he was gone – vanished without a trace. Their lives are in limbo as they wait for news of his fate.

Their friend Pete, the town policeman, waits too. He and his wife are childless and see Lockie as a surrogate grand child, Doug as a son. As a policeman Pete knows he should remain distanced, but as a friend he suffers too.

The Boy Under the Table is a shocking story of abduction and mistreatment, told through the alternating viewpoints of Tina, Sarah, Doug and Pete. As well as being the frightening, yet moving, tale of Lockie’s ordeal, it is also the story of Tina’s own loss of a brother and the circumstances which saw her end up on the street, of Doug and Sarah’s relationship, and of their friendship with Pete. These other plot lines help to make the story more real, but also more palatable, offering relief from what could be an overwhelming main storyline.

Whilst this is not an easy read in terms of subject matter, it is gripping and also full of hope against pretty tough odds. Trope handles the subject deftly and with compassion making it not just palatable but ultimately uplifting.

The Boy Under the Table, by Nicole Trope
Allen & Unwin, 2012
ISBN 9781742379272

This book is available in good bookstores or online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

Blood Brothers, by Carole Wilkinson

Tao’s eyes were wide. A terrified whimper escaped from his gaping mouth. Standing in front of him was a dragon.
The creature observed the boy with unblinking eyes, and took a step towards him. Convinced that the dragon was about to attack, Tao turned to run, hoping he could climb out a window. Fear gave him speed, but the dragon was faster.

Hundreds of years after the events of the third Dragonkeeper book, readers have a new chance to enter the wonderful world of dragons and their keepers. This time the hero is Tao, a descendant of Ping, the heroine of the first three books. Tao is a novice in a Buddhist monastery, determined to live a good and peaceful life to earn karma for his twin brother. But his peace is interrupted when he is visited by Kai – at 465 a teenager in dragon terms. He is on a quest to find his new dragonkeeper, and is sure Tao is that person, in spite of Tao’s reluctance.

Together boy and dragon journey through troubled times, each helping and learning from the other. Tao realises that Kai has secrets and that only he can help him – but he, too, can be helped to meet his true destiny.

Blood Brothers is the fourth in the Dragonkeeper series and, rather than picking up where the previous one left off, has deliberately been placed in a new time period, allowing a new cast of characters and a new historical backdrop. Although Kai, who was centre stage for the second and third books, is still very much a focus, he is a different Kai, no longer an enthusiastic hatchling looking for his kind, but a troubled teen trying to find his way in the world and with a past he has trouble coming to terms with.

What is common to the earlier books is the qualitty of the writing, with a beautifully woven story, action and adventure, and characters readers will come to love or loathe and want to hear more about. The new offering does stand alone but, with the first three books rereleasd to coincide with its publication, readers will enjoy reading (or rereading) the whole series.

Wonderful.

Blood Brothers (Dragonkeeper), by Carole Wilkinson
Black Dog Books, 2012
ISBN 9781742031897

This book is available from good bookstores or online from Fishpond.

Green Monkey Dreams, by Isobelle Carmody

I ride this day upon the Worldroad, alone, except for courage, who rides on the pommel of my saddle fluffing his feathers. I did not dream of journeying thus as a child.

Reading an Isobelle Carmody story is a special experience, an experience which doesn’t end with the last word. The stories in Green Monkey Dreams, first published in 1996, are diverse in subject matter and theme, but each story takes the reader in a tight grip then squeezes, making you stop and consider what is real, and leaving you pondering reality, values, even life itself long after.

In the title story, which is also the last story in the book, for example, a girl dreams of dreaming, in layer upon layer of dream so that it is impossible to tell which, if any, version is reality. In ‘Long Live the Giant’ the protagonist shares her discoveries about the meaning of life and, importantly, death, having been given the chance of immortality.

The stories are each different, set in fantastical worlds and differing time periods, but some motifs do recur, particularly the image of a tower in a graveyard, said to be the burial site of a giant whoes arm pointed skywards in death and so was covered by a tower. Angels and monkeys are also mentioned more than once, and tales and characters from traditional fairy stories are used.

Suitable for young adult and adult readers, this is a collection best enjoyed one story at a time, as each story needs time to be processed and appreciated.

Green Monkey Dreams, by Isobelle Carmody
This edition Allen & Unwin, 2012
ISBN 9781742379470

This book is available in good bookstores or online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

Three Summers by Judith Clarke

Ruth woke from a dream of Tam Finn, so vivid that for a moment its landscape – the narrow stretch of coarse sand beside the creek, the ripple of brown water over the pebbles, the broad shiny leaves of the bushes on the far bank – seemed more real than the familiar furniture of her room. She sat up, throwing the covers back, breathing hard, while the brown water and the shiny bushes flickered and faded, sucked into a mist which thinned the and then vanished, leaving nothing behind except a suspicion that ordinary things were not as solid as they appeared.

Ruth lives with her grandmother and distant father in a remote country town. She’s finishing secondary school and destined to leave everything and everyone she knows to go to university in Sydney. It’s a path that began when her mother was killed in a car accident and she, a baby, was tossed from the car to land safely nearby. But it has echoes further back, when her grandmother was an orphan and made friends with the local priest. Although she knows leaving is inevitable, Ruth has doubts. Her best friend Fee has chosen another path entirely. How will her father and grandmother get on without her? Does her grandmother want this for her, more than she does for herself? And where does Tam Finn, son of the local largeholder, and subject of much of the town’s fascination and gossip, fit in?

Three Summers follows Ruth across her lifetime, stitching forwards and backwards through her history and beyond to make sense of her story. Primarily set in outback Australia, Ruth is stepping from the known and loved (despite limitations) world into an unknown future. She is supported by her grandmother and her grandmother’s certainty, and the less overt love of her grieving father. Other characters pull her this way and that, as she traverses familiar landscape and looks forward as well as back. There are three sections, the first as she waits for her school marks and the arrival (or not) of the letter that will change her life forever. The second two sessions dip like spring winds into her life, skimming across decisions she makes and fails to make. Throughout, her love of family, her friendship with Fee and her memories of an unrealised first love move her closer and closer to the unexpected end. ‘Three Summers’ is a lyrical and enjoyable read for mid- to upper-secondary readers.

Three Summers, Judith Clarke
Allen & Unwin 2012
ISBN: 9781742378275

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com

Love-shy by Lili Wilkinson

I found a story.

Before I joined the team, our school newspaper couldn’t really be called a newspaper. It wasn’t fit for wrapping fish, and not just because it wasn’t printed with organic inks on unbleached paper. The typical headline was generally something like SOCCER TEAM TRIUMPHS or YEAR ELEVEN ADVENTURES AT ULURU. Nobody was interested in serious journalism. Except for me.

Since I came along, I’d written an analysis of the contents of the chicken-and-corn-in-a-roll sold at the school canteen (trust me, you don’t want to know – suffice to say it didn’t come from a chicken), an investigation into literacy levels in Year Seven, an expose on the teachers who smoked outside the back door of the staff room, and a variety of penetrating interviews, unflinching reviews and frank profiles.

There’s no secrets or doubt about Penny Drummond’s plans for her future. She’s going to be an award-winning journalist. Famous and wealthy and looked up to by all. But for now all she has is the school paper. And she’s after the killer story to start her career. When she discovers that a student has been posting on a Love-shy forum, she knows she has THE story. With her superior investigative journalism skills, she knows she will soon discover who the boy is. Then she’ll help him overcome his dread condition, he will be eternally grateful and her article will be amazing. So she sets about her task with a single-mindedness she is sure is unparalleled in the history of journalism. Nothing is going to get in the way of this great deed, this great article. Penny is bright, brash and opinionated. But she’s not always right.

Penny Drummond lives with her dad in a Melbourne-city apartment now her mother has moved to Perth. Her Dad is gay, and her mother is still in shock. Penny can’t quite understand her mother’s fleeing and has more sympathy for her dad. She’s sure she’s in total control. Sure her questioning of others sometimes yields responses not as revealing as she hopes, but that’s the journalist’s lot isn’t it? If you want to help others (particularly one love-shy boy), you have to ask the hard questions, make the difficult choices. Penny’s classmates are generally tolerant of her foibles, but she’s becoming obsessed and her always exemplary work is suffering. ‘Love-shy’ is told in first person, and the reader easily empathises with Penny, long before she begins to develop any insights herself. ‘Love-shy’ is a wonderful mix of humour and cringe, of a teenager learning her place in her world, and realising that introspection can be a useful tool, particularly in helping others. Recommended for middle-secondary readers.

Love-shy, Lili Wilkinson
Allen & Unwin 2012
ISBN: 9781742376233

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com

Not Bog Standard (and other Peculiar Stories) by Mark Pardoe

I’ve always hated flushing the toilet.

I know it’s mad but I can’t stand the noise and the sloshing water. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been convinced that a poo-covered sewer monster is going to come flying out of the toilet bowl and grab me with its slimy claws.

Okay, it’s stupid, I admit it. But be honest, are you really sure there’s nothing living in your toilet?

Matthew has what everyone else in his house considers to be an irrational fear of flushing the toilet, particularly at night. Now, since his tenth birthday, for some reason he needs to use the toilet every night. Every night he has the same dilemma – to flush, or not to flush. But things are getting worse. His aim, apparently, is one of them. But that’s just the beginning. Next is a story about a birthday present cat. Then there’s the chatterbox bird, and a found diary. There are twelve stories in this collection of weird and wonderful tales, each more spooky than the last. There are spooky cats, dunnies of doom, magic tricks, diabolical diaries and Santa solutions.

Do you like to be scared? This is the collection for you. There’s something to horrify everyone, and to give you nightmares. Imagine the worst nightmare you’ve ever had, where inanimate objects come to life and things return from the dead. Then take control and see what you are capable of. Will you overcome your fears, or is more still expected of you? Ideal for the reader who likes their adventures wild, and their stories weird and twisty-turning. Recommended for middle-primary and beyond. Just don’t read them at night time!

Not Bog Standard and Other Peculiar Stories, Mark Pardoe
Omnibus Books 2012
ISBN: 9781862918634

Reviewed by Claire Saxby

Children’s writer

www.clairesaxby.com

Dragon Moon, by Carol Wilkinson

Rereleased with a beautiful new cover.

The following review was published on Aussiereviews in 2007, when the book was first released.

Everything was bathed in orange blight. The breeze rippled the grass. There were bushes covered with yellow blossom. The grass was speckled with purple bells and spikes of blue flowers. A stream cut its way across the plateau before it plunged over the edge and became the Serpent’s Tail. Long Gao Yuan was just as Ping had imagined.
A sorrowful sound broke the silence. It was Kai. It made Ping’s heart ache.

For more than a year Ping and Kai have sheltered at Beibai Palace, but now Ping knows they must continue their journey. Ping is the last dragon keeper, charged with the care of Kai, the last dragon. She must take Kai to safety, but where this safety lies is not yet clear. All she has is a message from Danzi, Kai’s now dead father.

Together the pair cross China, searching for the haven Danzi has instructed them to find. Along the way they encounter old friends, and many perils, but gradually Ping unravels the clues Danzi has given,. When they reach the dragon haven, Kai will be safe and there might even be other dragons to help raise him. Or are they in for more heartbreak?

Dragon Moon is the brilliant third and final instalment in the Dragonkeeper trilogy, by award winning author Carole Wilkinson. This superb fantasy offering will have readers from ten to adult enthralled, turning pages eagerly to keep up with Ping and Kai’s journey. The ancient Chinese setting and the wonderful rendering of the dragon characters carries the reader into the fantasy world that Wilkinson has created, suspending disbelief with ease.

The only negative about this book is that it marks the end of such an awe-inspiring trilogy.

Dragon Moon, by Carole Wilkinson
Black Dog Books, 2007, and new edition 2012

This new edition is available in good bookstores and online from Fishpond.