Books

More information (including book trailers and teacher notes) on the different books is available by clicking on the book covers.

‘Miss Understood‘ ($18) illustrated by Beau Wylie, was released May 2022 with Scholastic Australia and shortlisted in the Australian Speech Pathology Book of the Year Awards.

I’m the wolf, Miss Understood.
You think I’m bad, but I am good.
Those Little Pigs told you a porker —
made it sound like I’m a stalker!

Is the wolf really as BIG and BAD as she seems? Or is she just . . . misunderstood? An irresistible story about being accepted for who you really are.

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‘What Snail Knows‘ ($15) with illustrations by Mandy Foot, was released March 2022 with UQP.

Lucy and Dad move a lot, so it’s hard to make friends.

Lucy’s glad she has Snail, the perfect pet for a lonely girl. If only she had her own shell to hide in every time she started at a new school.

But this place is different. She likes her teacher, Miss Darling. She likes her classmates, especially Tahnee. She even likes Mei-hui’s van park, where she lives with Dad and Snail. This place feels like home. Can she convince her dad to stay?

A moving story about making friends and finding where you belong.

——

‘The Bird in the Herd‘ ($25) illustrated by Renee Treml, was released by UQP in March 2021.

Look! A herd of cows.

There’s a bird in the herd that stalks as it walks, eating slugs and the bugs that the herd stirred. What else can you see as you follow the cheeky bird?

Bright and playful, this rollicking rhyming picture book with gorgeous sun-soaked illustrations will have little ones hootin’ and a-tootin’!

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‘Up and Down on a Rainy Day‘ ($25) illustrated by Janet Turner, was released by State Library of Queensland in December 2020, in their Stories for Little Queenslanders series, and was shortlisted in the Australian Speech Pathology Book of the Year Awards.

Sun up.
Rain down.

Wake up.
Jump down.

A farming family gets up to wet and muddy fun as the rain falls down. Celebrating farms, family and rainy-day play!

——

‘Too Many Friends‘ ($15) was released by UQP in May 2017 and was a 2018 CBCA Book of the Year, Younger Readers Notable Book.

A delightful verse novel rejoicing in the innocence of young friendship.

At school 
I have lots of friends.
I have so many friends that
sometimes I
don’t know
                   who
                          to
                               play
                                     with.

Tahnee wants everyone in her Year 2 class to get along and be happy. But what happens when all of Tahnee’s friends want her attention at the same time? And how can Tahnee be friends with Lucy, when Lucy doesn’t seem to want any friends?

A novel about friendship and school life, and the balance we all need to find to be the best friend we can be.

——

Middle grade verse novel, ‘On Track‘ ($17) was released by UQP in June 2015, and selected for New Zealand Listener’s Top 50 Children’s Books for 2015.

Everyone says
you couldn’t get two brothers
more different than
Shaun and Toby.

Toby struggles at school, has a stumbly, fumbly, bumbly body and thinks that Sports Day is the worst day of the year. No matter how hard he tries, he’s not good at anything … except running away from his ‘big, better brother’.

Shaun is top of his class and does everything first, better, best! He can’t wait for Sports Day — D-Day for discus. But when his ‘joke of a brother’ is around, nobody notices the things Shaun can do.

Will Toby and Shaun get on track before Sports Day?

——

Younger reader verse novel, ‘Bully on the Bus‘ ($15) was released by UQP, July 2014, and selected for New Zealand Listener’s Top 50 Children’s Books for 2014. It won the Australian Family Therapy’s Award for Children’s Literature (Younger Readers) in 2015. It was published in North America by Kane Miller Books in 2018.

She’s big.
She’s smart.
She’s mean.

She picks on me and
I don’t know how to make her stop.

Leroy has a ‘Secret Weapon’, but will it help him find the strength and courage he needs to overcome the bully’s ways, once and for all?

——

‘This is the Mud!’ ($17) illustrated by Warren Crossett, was published in 2009 by Lothian Hachette.

This is the cow who was chewing her cud
as she went for a drink and got stuck in the mud!
Who will rescue the cow?
Who will rescue the rescuers?
And how do they all make such a mess in the mud?

Wash hands after reading this very muddy book!

——

‘Fencing with Fear‘ ($10) was published in 2008 as a part of the Aussie! Read series. It is distributed by Blake Education.

Brette and her brother are on a routine trip with their father, checking the fences of their property. All goes well until an accident leaves Dad hurt and unconscious. Brette must cross a swollen creek and travel over kilometres of rough country to get help. Will she be able to do it in time to save her father?

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