19 Aug Books for Emerging & Older readers
Most of these books are part of a series or the author has written more books in the same genre – so plenty of reading to find here!
Carly Mills Pioneer Girl –‘A New World’ -Time Travelling Adventure #1
by Jane Smith (Big Sky Publishing, PB, RRP$12.50) Age group 7+
Dora and Carly are friends visiting Sydney before they head off to their new schools. They visit the old Custom House museum (Circular Quay), picking up an old discarded shawl. Told to throw it away Carly keeps it and as she throws it casually around her shoulders, her life (as she knows it) suddenly changes!
Sent right back in time to 1841, Carly Mills is about to learn how dangerous Sydney can be for a lonely colonial girl…and how hard it is to move, in a corset. Mrs Caroline Chisholm (an early Australian social reformer) tells her that kindness and friendship can make the world a better place. Could she be right?
Part of a new series of time travelling fiction adventures that celebrate the courage and contribution of some of world’s most inspiring pioneering women.
Gemma Riley and the Fashion Fiasco
by Jules Van Mil (Pan Macmillan Australia, PB, RRP$16.99) Age Group 8+
The author comes from a fashion related background and this shines through her story about Gemma and a fashion house (House of Bonafete). Gemma’s grandmother runs the fashion house and Gemma herself is living and learning about the industry. The Spring Collection is in development and someone is stealing their top-secret designs! Gemma needs to catch the thief and save her grandmother’s Spring Collection.
Starfell – Willow Moss and the Forgotten Tale
by Dominique Valente & illustrated by Sarah Warburton (HarperCollins PB, RRP$16.99) Age group 8+
Second book in the Starfell series about Willow Moss, the youngest and least powerful sister in a family of witches, who usually has a magical ability for finding lost things. But in this story, objects (or people) keep disappearing instead! Her friend ‘Sometimes’ has been kidnapped – can Willow restore her magic enough to find him?
Battle Born (Elementals #3)
by Amie Kaufman (HarperCollins PB, RRP$17.99) Age group 9+
The last in the series (after Ice Wolves & Scorch Dragons) Battle Born follows a brother and sister and their allies as they try to unite humans, ice wolves and a scorch dragon to find peace in their world. Cloudhaven in the key, but it is also the forbidden land and Drifa their long lost mother seems to have the key.
A fantasy series about shape-shifters, dragons and wolves where there is no clear enemy but in the end, peace must be found.
The StrangeWorlds Travel Agency
by L.D. Lapinski (Hachette Australia PB, RRP$16.99) Age group 9+
A young boy walks into a shop looking for a ‘Games Warehouse’ and all he sees is a wall of all types of suitcases stacked everywhere. One suitcase bursts open and out comes a couple drenched in water and an octopus! He has wandered into the Strangeworlds Travel Agency.
A young girl has just moved into Town and is also drawn to this unusual Travel Agency and ends up being involved in a mysterious race against time (and on a magical adventure) to save a city called Five Lights. Strongly recommended.
(A nice touch is the name of the proprietor of the Travel Agency, Jonathon Mercator – after the Mercator map of the world we are familiar with!)
The School Masters Daughter
by Jacki French (HarperCollins PB, RRP$17.99) Age group 10+
From Australia’s best-loved storyteller comes a beautiful historical novel drawn from her own family history. It’s a coming of age story, set in 1901 Australia. As the young country is finding it’s place in the world, education for girls is not on the public agenda. Hannah and her mother run a secret school in a township founded on Pacific island slavery. All is not well in the fight for female education …
The Betrothed
by Kiera Cass (HarperCollins PB, RRP$16.99) Age group 13+
Part of a genre this author has specialised in of ‘fantasy romances’ (The Selection Series).
The Betrothed has all the glitter and mystery to keep a teen reader gripped. There’s a King looking for a Queen; Castles, and a mystery commoner who shows Lady Hollis Brite that becoming queen may not be the happily ever after she thought it would be.
Not a novel for everyone but definitely in the ‘Mill and Boon’ romance genre.
