Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

CYA Survey

With series titles dominating the new releases, it would seem that every author’s (and illustrator’s) ambition is to find a character and a conceit that will have sufficient appeal to carry them successfully through multiple volumes. This is a particularly achievable ambition in children’s literature, where the target readership has a high tolerance for repetition, a loyalty towards favourite characters and a seemingly insatiable appetite for more of the same.

... (read more)

Learning about the world is one of the great fruits of reading. It can be as much fun as solving a puzzle, provided the information is presented to invite questioning and interpretation. These five attractively produced, accessible books are designed to appeal to their intended audiences, but how well do they avoid the over-simplification that is an inherent danger in tailoring ‘facts’ to the needs and interests of inexperienced readers?

... (read more)

Food is always a winning ingredient in books for children. Mini-chocoholics will devour I Like Chocolate (Wilkins Farago, $24.99 hb, 28 pp), a delicious book that celebrates the delights of chocolate consumption. Davide Cali has produced an enthusiastic and humorous book with gentle messages about sharing and caring, and eating in moderation. Shaped like a large block of chocolate, I Like Chocolate is ‘sugar-free, won’t melt in your pocket and contains no traces of nuts!’ It is almost as satisfying as a really good truffle.

The story features a young boy who details all the reasons why he likes chocolate, and some of the many ways in which it can be eaten. He also describes how it can be used as a comfort food in a range of situations and as a perfect gift for any occasion. Evelyn Daviddi uses a soft green, red, yellow and, of course, brown palette in her cartoon-style illustrations, which feature a wonderfully expressive cast of characters. This ode to chocolate is sure to entice anyone with a sweet tooth.

... (read more)

Miss McAllister’s Ghost by Elizabeth Fensham & Take it Easy, Danny Allen by Phil Cummings

by
June 2008, no. 302

Childhood is full of revelatory moments; sometimes shocking instants of understanding that people, events and relationships are not as they seem. They can happen in adulthood too, but those in childhood can have an intensity that makes them deeply formative. They might be subtle eye-openers or life-changing epiphanies, but they all cause a shift in perspective that changes one’s perception of the world. These six new books contain transformative moments for their protagonists, from the realism of family secrets to the fantasy of high-adventure mysteries.

... (read more)

This splash of books demonstrates that the vigorous publishing for the young adult market embraces subjects as varied as mental illness, bullying, sleuthing in medieval times, crime in the present, defending an occupied Australia and two dead mothers; and is written across the genres of realism, fantasy and historical fiction. But how much is enticing to the adolescent reader?

... (read more)

Life’s not easy when … (fill in the blank according to your main story issue). It is a line that appears frequently on back covers and in press releases for junior fiction. But life is getting a lot easier for parents and teachers of reluctant readers who would far rather race around with a ball than curl up with a book. With the arrival of the sports novel, they can now read about somebody else racing around with a ball – or surfing, swimming, pounding the running track, wrestling, or cycling (the genre covers a wide field). Balls, however, seem to predominate. And problems. Life isn’t easy for publishers without a sports series. Hoping to emulate the success of the ‘Specky Magee’ books written by Felice Arena and Garry Lyon, publishers have been busy throwing authors and sport stars together, one to do the creative business, and the other to add verisimilitude and sporting cred.

... (read more)

Here are five reasons why there is a literacy crisis in Australia. It is not about teacher-training; it’s about appallingly conservative publishing choices and the positioning of ‘reading’ as something that needs to be slipped under the radar of children’s attention, rather than celebrating it as one of life’s biggest adventures. What these novels share is a commitment to sport as a structuring narrative principle. Australian Rules, rugby union, netball, athletics, soccer: the sports and titles change, but the overall arc remains the same. In this respect, these books feel market-driven: generic responses to some global marketing division called ‘encouraging reluctant readers’. While this enterprise is not unworthy, the assumption that children who are not reading will be automatically attracted to novels about organised sport seems dubious.

... (read more)