MOONBOY
by Anna Ciddor
(Allen & Unwin, $19.99)
Australian author and illustrator Anna Ciddor, whose first children’s book documented the life of her Jewish grandparents in the years before they were exterminated in the Holocaust, has done timeslip before. The Boy Who Stepped Through Time followed an Aussie kid on holiday in the South of France flipping to Roman times (unfortunately, as a slave). In this novel Letty/Charlotte is a less enthusiastic participant in a swap that focuses on events around the moon landing of July, 1969. In the present, her granddad is descending into dementia and she is a reluctant visitor to the retirement home where he lives. But back in the day Keith was desperately caught up in the excitement of the race to land men on the moon, and the author uses press cuttings and other mementoes to trigger recognition. Cleverly plotted and well supported by afterwords, Moonboy is as valuable for its exploration of the prevailing attitudes as for facts about the landing itself.
HIDDEN TREASURE
by Jessie Burton
(Bloomsbury, $19.99)
Another middle-grade novel that plays with time is based on the lives of the mudlarks, who have long fossicked on the banks of the Thames in London for treasure. This is only the second children’s novel from the author of adult books, including The Miniaturist. This story of “people who live by the rules of the river, who aren’t rich or powerful or automatically destined for greatness” has taken 25 years to tell, from when Jessie Burton walked across the river each day to school, not discovering until much later that two generations of her ancestors had worked as watermen on the Thames – and she had unknowingly set her whole story near the very streets they inhabited. The spirit of the river takes on a living presence in this tale of “the magic that is under our noses … and the other, stranger magic”.
And here’s a question: if you could bring back to life one person you had loved, who would you choose?
CHICKENPOX
by Remy Lai
(A&U, $22.99)
So convincing was this graphic tale of a girl charged with looking after her quarantined siblings that moko Amelie, 11, has read it twice and wants to read it again. It’s set a generation ago (before a vaccine for chickenpox became available) and in another country. Even though Indonesia-born, Singapore-raised Remy Lai doesn’t have siblings it still rings true. As does her scenario of the big sister feeling responsible for the whole itchy zoo, since it was her friend who was Patient Zero. Or it could just be the author-illustrator’s irresistible portrayal of preteen friendships, which are suddenly jeopardised by the lockdown.
RIDE NORTH
by Maria de Jong
(Andersen Press, $19)
No doubt many horse-mad kids feel they have a deep bond with their animal, but a talking pony? Let’s just say the conceit works, in this classic running-away-from-home adventure set in the Far North of Aotearoa. Still grieving the death of her mum, Folly takes off with her sleeping bag, a pop-up tent slung over the saddle of her dream pony Tooth (for the white dab on his forehead), and her mother’s ashes, heading for Cape Reinga. She has never even camped out before, and being the victim of road rage early on will add to the drama in unforeseen ways. Along the way, the resolute pre-teen encounters all the expected obstacles – natural, supernatural and criminal – recovering from each setback with aplomb. Thanks to a mentoring award from Storylines, the experienced hand of children’s writer Janice Marriott helped guide this debut novel from a Kiwi now living in Amsterdam to publication with European house Andersen Press.
BEAR
by Kiri Lightfoot
(A&U, $27.99)
The author of two superb picture books – the unforgettable 2008 Every Second Friday (illustrated by Ben Galbraith) and Ming’s Icebergs (illustrated by Kimberly Andrews, 2021) – is a worthy winner of the Tessa Duder YA award for this story. Jasper Robinson-Woods, with his too-long name and dad missing in action, hides in a tree to escape his living nightmare: the certainty that someone is dying inside his house. Spoiler alert (revealed on page 2): it’s only his goldfish, though that doesn’t make Jasper’s misery any the less. Often very funny, this debut novel nevertheless conveys the overwhelmingly intense inner life of a child with heightened sensitivity, incapacitated by black thoughts, whose life is turned upside down by his family situation. From a multitalented creative – actor, arts activist and Youthline counsellor – Kiri Lightfoot is also mum of three school-aged kids, arguably the most demandingly creative role of all. More please!
UNHALLOWED HALLS
by Lili Wilkinson
(A&U, $27.99)
Darkly intense yet more redemptive than her previous Deep is the Fen YA fantasy, this “dark academia fantasy” offers a strangely satisfying exploration of the concept of reincarnation, set in the Scottish Highlands rather than the more usual East Asian settings. Florida native Page escapes a trail of American boarding school expulsions, courtesy of an unexplained scholarship to Agathion College, a dream location straight out of glossy magazines. There’s secrets, lies and demonic magic, some gruesome, but that doesn’t really do this book justice – and there’s much to think about as the story unfolds. Lily Wilkinson (daughter of Dragonkeeper author Carole Wilkinson) is another author who flips from YA to junior fiction with ease – her second Bravepaw book, The Clawstone of Rotwood Mire, is just out.
SUNNY AT THE END OF THE WORLD
by Steph Bowe
(Text, $26)
Zombie apocalypse anyone? Not my usual choice, but when a writer as marvellous as the late Steph Bowe leaves behind a work featuring such an unbelievable scenario I had to take a deep breath and plunge in. Fellow Australian writer (Unhallowed Halls, above) Lili Wilkinson calls this posthumous YA novel from the author of Girl Saves Boy, All This Could End and Night Swimming, “brutal, tender and fierce”. It’s all of those – with a whacking twist at the end that will take your breath away. Aged just 15 when she wrote her first novel – about a character with a terminal cancer diagnosis, which she would later experience – Bowe became a mentor to other young writers before her death in January 2020, urging them to reject stereotyping and speak up. Her agent, Ginger Clark, wrote: “Start early, read voraciously and widely. That is Steph’s legacy.”
MILES AND JONES THE BLIZZARD OF BLOBS
by Sam Smith
($14.99)
The anacondas have been seen to from the last adventure, and in this second Miles and Jones graphic novel, best friends Shackleton and Amelia have to battle sky blobs, whatever they might be. Sam Smith, a writer for TV, and illustrator Cesar Lador has them again battling Glam-Evil, making their way through a dark, spooky cave, debating the difference between magma and lava, and coping with jokes such as, “I haven’t experienced this much wind since the three-bean curry I made last year.” A third book is promised.
