Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody
by Patrick Ness & Tim Miller
Adult and YA fans of Patrick Ness will be holding their breath. Fear not, though, as a whole new generation of fans is set to be hooked on his quirky humour – enhanced by Tim Miller’s black-and-white illustrations – from the opening pages of this punny middle-fiction story. Monitor lizards on school hall duty? Well, as the author of the Chaos Walking trilogy and A Monster Calls told the American School Library Journal, it’s simply “a silly idea based on a very silly pun”. But, like his more grown-up books, it doesn’t shy away from big issues – although he doesn’t start out with a list, he trusts instead, as he told me some years ago, that “the story you tell will contain all these things … but they show up in a non-preachy way”. The monitor lizards are bussed in as part of a school integration programme; Zeke’s life is dominated by his mum’s black dog (depression); and the school bully (called Helicarnassus, “simply because it’s such a powerful word it seemed the natural fit for an upstart super-villain pelican”) has a mega-rich parent to hide behind. On a funnier note – since Ness finds animals are funnier when they go against their stereotypes – there are pandas that like heavy metal but are also quite nice, and a very not-cute-but-haughty pony who controls the school stationery supplies. Weirdly wonderful.
Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody by Patrick Ness & Tim Miller (Walker, $19) is out now.
The Hotel Balzaar
by Kate DiCamillo
It’s hard to believe that DiCamillo, a double Newbery Medal winner – given by the American Library Association – received 473 rejection letters before Because of Winn Dixie, the book that changed her life. Like many of her previous, significantly autobiographical books, this second Norendy tale, companion to The Puppets of Spelhorst, involves a missing parent – her own father left the family when she was 6. Exquisitely constructed, this rebuilds a child’s past through stories told by an ancient countess, with a parrot called Blitzkoff, who takes up a suite in the hotel where Marta lives with her mama, a maid, as they wait for her father to return from a war. For the perceptive reader/listener, there are clues in Papa’s last letter, as well as visual clues in Julia Sarda’s elegant illustrations – a painting of an angel wing, embroidered slippers too large for her feet, an empty perfume bottle, a cat-and-mouse clock – that start to add up to a more complete picture. A timeless treasure.
The Hotel Balzaar by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick Press, $28) is out October 1st.
The Sugarcane Kids and the Empty Cage
by Charlie Archbold
In their first adventure, involving a red-bottomed boat, five kids up a Queensland creek took on a bunch of crooks and a deadly croc to clear their cousin’s name. This time, they’re on the trail of a bunch of exotic animal thefts, starting with a parrot, Gloria, and the scrub python from the library’s terrarium. Plus, the friendly woman who runs the school canteen has been replaced by a tyrant who may have something to do with the thefts. There are some wonderfully eccentric older characters, and not everyone is what they seem. Enormous fun. Expect a third title next year.
The Sugarcane Kids and the Empty Cage by Charlie Archbold (Text, $21) is out now.
The Best Witch in Paris
by Lauren Crozier
What a treat to read this first novel, by a prize-winning Australian author, after the Paris Olympics. An abandoned infant is adopted by a trio of witches, grows up not quite sure of her witchiness, and on acquiring a boobook owl (closely related to our ruru), discovers it may already belong to a more infamous witch. It could be sinister but for the most part this witch-in-training story is only pleasantly scary, although – spoiler alert – arachnophobes may be freaked out by one encounter. Truly funny incidents involve broomsticks (mop, anyone?) and the occasional trip to Melbourne, where there’s no need for a Witches’ Quarter, as black clothing is worn by non-witches, too. The moving final scene is set on Otago Peninsula – you might guess which bird is involved.
The Best Witch in Paris by Lauren Crozier (Text, $21) is out now.
Giraffe Island
by Sofia Chanfreau & Amanda Chanfreau
Translator and publisher Julia Marshall says although she didn’t see imaginary animals when she was a child, she has no trouble seeing them now. In the Chanfreau sisters’ Finlandia Prize-winning novel, Vega’s world is populated by imaginary animals. These are full-grown hybrid or extinct creatures, such as the tiny woolly mammoth that lives in Vega’s wardrobe, all beautifully brought to life by the pen of Amanda, a tattoo artist in her other life who, with her sister, conjured this charming story of a lost mother, absent father, eccentric granddad and a child in search of a family. Truly magical, with a circus to boot.
Giraffe Island by Sofia Chanfreau & Amanda Chanfreau (Gecko, $20) is out now.
