Stella Lees

Stella Lees reviews Three Children's Picture Books

December 2004–January 2005, no. 267 • 01 December 2004

We read for pleasure; perhaps this way we find out more about ourselves. Pleasure comes first, a fact that is often lost when a book is overanalysed, always a danger when questions follow a pattern of interpretation designed to trace a line around a response. Picture books are particularly vulnerable, as their words are few and they are becoming more sophisticated, drawing on traditional, modern a ... (read more)

Stella Lees reviews Seven Children's Non-Fiction Books

December 2002-January 2003, no. 247 • 01 December 2002

I was given these books for review just as I was finishing W.G. Sebald’s novel Austerlitz. Its combination of fictional characters, information about language, architecture and war, and visual images reminded me that reading has so many functions. We read in order to imagine, to learn, to make discoveries. My admiration for Austerlitz also put me in mind of national differences. On the cover is ... (read more)

Stella Lees reviews four young adult non-fiction books

May 2004, no. 261 • 01 May 2004

As Eric Hobsbawn points out in his autobiography, Interesting Times: A Twentieth Century Life (2002), ‘the world needs historians more than ever, especially skeptical ones’. History, however, is not a popular subject in today’s schools. Three of these four books make attempts, variously successful, to engage young readers in a sense of the past. The other is a bizarre compilation of odd deta ... (read more)

Stella Lees reviews 'My Name is Will Thompson' by Robert Newton, 'Camel Face' by Moya Simons and 'Burnt Out' by Marguerite Hann Syme

April 2001, no. 229 • 01 April 2001

Funny things happen in children's books, and there are some odd things happening to them, too. Robert Newton and Moya Simons clearly seek to tickle the funny-bone of twelve-year-olds; Marguerite Hann Syme, on the other hand, raises questions that are more likely to preoccupy adults, and there are no wisecracks in her offering. The funny thing is that all three are published as books for young adul ... (read more)

Stella Lees reviews 5 picture books

October 2005, no. 275 • 01 October 2005

No kangaroos, emus or possums in this lot – just pigs, rats, hares, cats, dogs and fantastic monsters. Australian picture books are in a healthy state if these five beautifully produced, cleverly constructed and thoughtful examples represent the genre. All celebrate that peculiarly human gift, imagination – the unsuspected alternatives, the leap outside the confines of reality. All would provi ... (read more)

Stella Lees reviews 'Sacked!' by Rachel Flynn, illustrated by Craig Smith and 'Footy Shorts' by Margaret Clark

April 2000, no. 219 • 01 April 2000

Rachel Flynn’s Sacked! is for the eight-to ten-year-old market, the same audience that J.K.  Rowling’s Harry Potter books are tapping. It’s an interesting stage when everything from cereal packets to Dad’s car manual demands to be read. Sacked! explores a clever absurdity with tongue-in-cheek, where the adult is likely to see the joke more than the child. ... (read more)