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Songs That Sound like Blood (Jared Thomas, Magabala)
Released August 2016
Growing up in Port Augusta is restricting Roxy’s dream to become a musician, but when she is accepted to Adelaide University’s Centre of Aboriginal Studies in Music, she feels conflicted... Read more
The Shark Caller (Dianne Wolfer, Random House)
Released August 2016
The Shark Caller breaks new ground in junior YA fiction. Dianne Wolfer blends a mystical tale about legends and traditions in Papua New Guinea with issues such as saving a... Read more
The Nose Pixies (David Hunt, illus by Lucia Masciullo, ABC Books)
Released August 2016
Everyone has heard of the tooth fairy, but what of the lesser-known nose pixies? The tiny, wingless pixies live in the royal kingdom of Schnozz, but instead of teeth they... Read more
One Step (Andrew Daddo, Penguin)
Released July 2016
Dylan is an average young guy; his life revolves around school, his family and his burgeoning interest in girls. However, all is not as it seems, and after bearing the... Read more
One Would Think the Deep (Claire Zorn, UQP)
Released June 2016
When Sam calls his Aunty Lorraine for the first time in seven years, it’s to tell her that his mum, her sister, is dead. It’s also to tell her that... Read more
The Road to Winter (Mark Smith, Text)
Released July 2016
Since the virus, Finn lives alone in his small coastal town with just his dog for company. He keeps his head down and lives off the supplies his father stored... Read more
My Brother (Dee, Oliver and Tiffany Huxley, Working Title Press)
Released July 2016
This profoundly moving picture book is about the overwhelming sorrow and sense of loss that follows the death of a loved one. The simple, expressive text, with carefully chosen words,... Read more
The Other Christy (Oliver Phommavanh, Puffin)
Released July 2016
Eleven-year-old Christy Ung has tried hard to fit in and make friends since she and her grandpa moved to Australia from Cambodia. At school, though, she’s almost invisible: thanks to... Read more
Black (Fleur Ferris, Random House)
Released July 2016
Is Ebony Marshall cursed? Three of her closest friends have died in separate accidents, and some people in her small Victorian country town are convinced she is bad luck. Ebony... Read more
Forgetting Foster (Dianne Touchell, A&U)
Released July 2016
Brutally honest and unflinching in its examination of the effects of Alzheimer’s disease on an entire family, Forgetting Foster is a beautiful, heart-wrenching book that will stay with you. Seven-year-old... Read more
When Michael Met Mina (Randa Abdel-Fattah, Pan)
Released July 2016
Michael and Mina could not be more different: she’s a ‘scholarship girl’ originally from Afghanistan and about to begin Year 11 at a posh new school in Sydney; he comes... Read more
Dragonfly Song (Wendy Orr, A&U)
Released July 2016
Born into privilege that is swiftly taken from her, Aissa learns early how painful life can be. In servitude at the age of four, never speaking and frequently mistreated, she... Read more
Steve Goes to Carnival (Joshua Button & Robyn Wells, Magabala)
Released July 2016
A picture book can often be a happy collaboration between an author and an illustrator; far more rarely is it the product of two artists. In Steve Goes to Carnival,... Read more
Ruins (Rajith Savanadasa, Hachette)
Released July 2016
Told from five viewpoints—mother, father, daughter, son, servant—Rajith Savanadasa’s debut novel is a ‘family bildungsroman’ which unfolds during the final days of the Sri Lankan civil war. Latha, aging servant... Read more
Rebellious Daughters (ed by Maria Katsonis & Lee Kofman, Ventura Press)
Released August 2016
Rebellious Daughters features a stellar line-up of Australian female writers sharing touching stories of rebellion, family life, coming of age and motherhood. Edited by Maria Katsonis and Lee Kofman, this... Read more
The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft (Tom Griffiths, Black Inc.)
Released July 2016
History, writes Tom Griffiths, is ‘the fundamental fabric of a common humanity’. In The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft, the Canberra-based academic and historian examines how writers... Read more
Treading Air (Ariella Van Luyn, Affirm Press)
Released July 2016
Confined to a locked Brisbane hospital in 1945, Lizzie O’Dea is thinking about the imminent release from gaol of her husband Joe. He’s served 20 years and she’s not sure... Read more
Nevernight (Jay Kristoff, HarperVoyager)
Released August 2016
This is an unusual new fantasy novel. Told in a mixture of third- and second-person narrative, it’s the story of a young woman who goes from noblewoman to outcast before... Read more
Troppo (Madelaine Dickie, Fremantle Press)
Released August 2016
In Madelaine Dickie’s debut novel Troppo, which won the 2014 TAG Hungerford Award for an unpublished manuscript by a WA writer, we meet Penny, a young, directionless woman who finds... Read more
Labour of Love: A Story of Generosity, Hope and Surrogacy (Shannon Garner, S&S)
Released July 2016
With two children of her own and positive birth experiences, Shannon Garner felt the urge to help others and found a gay couple, Jon and Justin, who needed a surrogate.... Read more
