If you have any great reading suggestions for young or older, please send them to editor@thewestsider.com.au
THE BEE STING
By Paul Murray
$32.99
Inventive Irish writer Paul Murray, has created a deliciously spiralling novel with four distinct character voices. Both hilarious and tragic at the same time, the story tells of a dysfunctional well-to-do family who reside in an Irish village. With the family business teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, both the parents and their two teen children are striving to find meaning in the face of loss and disappointments.
This beautifully written book — completely insightful and reflective of its awkward and unfulfilled four characters — is chock full of drama and humour as well as denial and heartbreak. A must-read!
WOMEN & CHILDREN
By Tony Birch
$34.99
Women & Children is a touching and powerful story of a ten-year-old boy growing up in working-class Melbourne in 1965.
Joe lives with his mum and sister, dodges trouble with the nuns at his local Catholic primary school, and helps his grandfather collect old scrap and treasure that others have discarded. The book is broken into 16 sections, each anecdote a glimpse into 1960s family life in inner-city Melbourne and into the subtle shifts of power between parent and child, and men and women. From Joe’s young perspective, we are reminded of the courage of kindness, the value of family to overcome hard times, and the power women have to stand by each other.
In his fantastic new book, Tony Birch writes with a beautiful sensitivity towards his characters, and with a quiet simplicity into darker themes of gender violence and institutional religion—but his novel isn’t angry or tragic. Women & Children refuses silence on these topics, yet emphasises the role kindness plays in recovery, from strangers and from family. A wonderful and profoundly affecting read for fans of Claire Keegan.
Impossible Creatures
By Katherine Rundell
Ages 9–14
$18.99
Katherine Rundell is a firm favourite at the Younger Sun and her latest middle grade release does not disappoint.
Impossible Creatures is the first of a new fantasy series, threaded throughout with important environmental issues and discoveries. Katherine Rundell has envisioned a world just out of reach, inhabited by the creatures of myth and legend.
Christopher is stunned when he discovers a passage to the Archipelago: a cluster of magical islands where all the creatures of myth still live and breed and thrive in their thousands. There he meets Mal: a girl from the islands, who is in possession of a flying coat and a baby griffin, and who is being pursued by a killer. Together they embark on an urgent quest to discover why the creatures are suddenly perishing, voyaging across the wild splendour of the Archipelago, where sphinxes hold secrets and centaurs do murder, in a bid to save both the islands and the world beyond them from a rising evil – before it’s too late.
This is an absolute treat for middle grade fantasy lovers.
PIZAZZ VS. THE FUTURE
By Sophy Henn
Ages 7–10
$17.99
Everyone’s favourite sarcastic and reluctant superhero, the indomitable Pizazz, is back for her 6th adventure in Pizazz vs The Future, and she is still not so sure on the whole superhero thing! Even so, she manages to always come out on top, but this time, evil has formed a whole company… That’s right, Team Toxic, AKA ToxiCo, are destroying the planet one plastic bag at a time. Plastic flowers, diesel powered roller skates, coal fired wind turbines, double strength petrol, and free plastic water bottles with every plastic water bottle are just some of the ways that ToxiCo are destroying the planet. Strangely, the adults don’t seem to be too worried, or even seem to care (hmm, sounds a little familiar?).
Pizazz has her rag-tag team of superheroes to help; there’s Jett, Red Dragon, Perfecto and a whole bunch of non-superhero friends too, to fight the evil polluting ToxiCo.
