Together by Jane Simmons

Mousse and Nut (two very different dogs) are the best of friends until one day something goes wrong. Nut jumps onto a wall, but it is too high for Mousse. Mousse jumps in the lake but Nut cannot swim.

"You're not my best friend any more,' said Mousse, unhappily. 'You're not mine then,' said Nut. Everything was horrible."

You need to notice the way Jane Simmons uses weather in her story. When Mousse and Nut begin their friendship the rain clears away and the sunshine breaks through the clouds. As their friendship shatters the dark cloud gather. Both retreat to their kennel homes to watch the rain. Mousse and Nut are miserable. Mousse makes the first move - setting out to talk to Nut. 

"They smiled at each other. The rain stopped and sunshine broke through the clouds."

A topic that is often requested by teachers of young children is friendship. A picture book can be a great way to show the ups and downs of friendship and also these books can also be great discussion starters or simply terrific for an adult to share with one child - the book can be a safe way to make sense of conflicts that should be seen as a 'normal' part of navigating relationships and especially friendships.

I highly recommend this book Together - it was published in 2006 but I am sure you will find a copy in a library - that's where I found it. You should also look for other books by Jane Simmons - I really like her 'soft focus' almost 'cuddly' illustrations.

In your library it might be fun to display other books with the word 'together' in the title:

We are together

Here is another book I love to share with children about 'weathering' the ups and downs of friendship:

A friend like Ed

Book Week (again) "Minimal Effort, Maximum Literacy" SMH Saturday 22nd August 2026

Book Week should be a 'week' of great joy for me - after all this is my 'industry', my passion, my work, BUT as usual I just sigh and slightly 'die' every time I read about the dressing up and the parades and I especially rage when I read about prizes for costumes and schools who lead kids in parades through suburban streets. Heading 'down the street', as I know happens in one local school, seems pointless to me and of course perpetuates the myth that a book week dress ups or a book week parade has some connection with books and reading. That this trail of kids walking on a footpath somehow relates to  kids loving reading or shows that kids are reading heaps of terrific books or that this is a celebration of Australian book award winners.  

I had actually decided that this year I would work hard to ignore all the dressing up hoopla and that, unlike other years, I would not bother with yet another blog post about this topic - after all who actually reads my 'stuff' - mostly people who live in the world of kids books and probably not any decision makers such as school Principals or other school executive.

When I saw the headline you just read at the top of this post in the Sydney Morning Herald today (it is officially the first day of Book Week here in Australia) I almost skipped reading this opinion piece - in fact my first reaction was to just toss this part of the paper into the recycling.

But then my eye caught a couple of words and I realised that Jenna Guillaume had actually given this topic the right emphasis - books and reading! (note the article from the SMH is behind a paywall).

Here are a few quotes that resonated with me:

"There's no doubt that, as with many other things, the rise of social media has seen the expectations around Book Week costumes soar, with the twin thieves of joy - competition and comparison ... "

My own personal childhood experience of this in the 1960s lingers. My mum found this costume making stressful. She made me two really terrific costumes - the wall with a Humpty Dumpty toy perched on top was one - but at school I was ridiculed - not by the kids - but by some teachers!

"The point of Book Week is, of course, to put books front and centre, and the costume frenzy can sometimes cause this to get lost."

"Book week is (should be) a great opportunity to take a moment to connect with kids if you let books lead the way, rather than the costumes."

The idea that the dress up outfit is from a favourite book seems so far removed now from the actual costume choices that I seem to witness.  It just becomes an easy compromise such as Where's Wally or The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Harry Potter or worse just a Disney outfit from the chain store. I guarantee most kids don't even know the fairy tale character they are portraying - Snow White or Red Riding Hood let alone realise that Frozen has links with the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Snow Queen. 

"Going to the library or your home bookshelves and combing through them with your kids, having conversations about their favourite stories and characters, is far more important than any elaborately styled outfit."

Wow! That's a great idea - go to the library, find a real book, dress up (if you must) in a costume that has real meaning to you as a reader! Book Week should be a time to acknowledgment of the importance of a school library and to highlight the importance of staffing your school library with a qualified Teacher-Librarian. A richly stocked library along with a dedicated staff member who READS BOOKS really can set kids up to become avid readers - surely that is a desirable outcome for Book Week.  Make sure you tune into Behind the News (BTN) next week - there will be a segement about school libraries.

Newspapers - I do have one more important thing to say here about the MEDIA. I purchased two major Sydney newspapers today and I have been right through both publications TWICE. Alas there is no mention of the other key part of Book Week - the announcement of the winners of our Australian National Book Award - WHY NOT?

Check out my post from yesterday where you will find three books in each of six categories that have been judged as our best Australian children's books of 2026. And prior to this if you need to seek out other fabulous books back in February the Children's Book Council announced the Notable (long listed) titles for these awards so that's over 100 other books you could look for in your school or local library. 

Image Source: Inside the CBCA 2026 Winners

Paperbark Words by Joy Lawn

A river I must be by Kate Foster

I want to walk away.

I want to scream and shout.

I want to cry and hide.

I want to make it all go away.

But I don't.

I must get away.

I must release what's inside.

I must be strong.

I must ...

But I won't.

I can't speak.

I can't hear.

I can't feel.

In this story we are privileged to hear the inner most thoughts of Bec. At times, though, her journey feels almost way too hard 'hear'. Is there no one who understands why she feels things so acutely. Why her uniform reacts so badly against her skin? Why she finds the school rules so confusing? Why she feels the need to wear a mask and copy the facial reactions of others? And worst of all - Why her teacher seems to hate her? 

Monday means school.

School means masking.

Masking means hiding.

Hiding is exhausting.

Thank goodness Bec does have one glorious outlet - she loves sport and more especially she loves and excels at gymnastics. Even better at gymnastics Bec is able to almost let her guard down as she spends precious time with her one true friend Clover. Sadly though, Clover attends a different school which means she cannot support Bec in the hostile school environment.

Bookseller burb: Rebecca Tapia has started at a prestigious new school and is overwhelmed by the rules and expectations. With her mum away and her dad facing challenges of his own, Rebecca's only way of surviving is to mask her autism.

My uniform suffocates me.

I fasten the top button,

yank at the cardboard collar,

adjust the cardboard sleeves,

retie the striped tie,

tightly

for good measure.

Strips of cloth

around necks.

Why?

I picked up this book in one of our large city chain bookstores and read the whole book in one sitting. Yes, it does have 260 pages, but the verse novel format and compelling story mean you will just fly through this heart wrenching story even though at times I did have to stop and take a breath.

I'm no one.

And no one listens

to fussy

little

girls

like me.

If you work in a High School library go out now and grab this book - this is an essential purchase. I also expect to see this book listed as a 2027 CBCA Notable title. Kate Foster has completely embraced the verse novel form for this book - it is hard to believe this is her first foray into this style of writing. 

Is anyone else always

aware of their heart 

beating?

Can anyone else always

feel their clothes and skin

touching?

Does anyone else always

have to concentrate on

breathing?

Does anyone else always

have a mind constantly

wandering?

Can anyone else always

sense the presence of others

living?

Is anyone else always

fit to burst form so much

thinking?

The teacher in this book - Mrs Rivers - is despicable and this might seem strange, but I am glad Kate Foster resisted the idea of her redemption. I can only hope (spoiler alert) that the school Principal now has enough information to remove this dreadful person from the school and even from the profession of teaching!

Click on this review from The Book Muse for a detailed plot summary: (The verse novel is) a gorgeous way of telling this story, and vastly different to Kate’s previous work. All of her books feature autistic characters, and each character’s autism is different. Yet telling this story in verse form felt very suitable, because it gave Rebecca’s story the voice and gravitas it needs to have the great impact it had on me and that I hope it has on younger readers who might be able to see themselves in Rebecca or understand what being autistic might be like for their friends. It’s powerful in its quiet way, yet also a loud advocate for autistic people and what they go through each day.

You may know I am not a fan of endorsements and there are so many on the first six pages of A river I must be, but I did find myself agreeing with so many of the comments by well-known Australian writers. Here are a few quotes:

"Tender, honest, heart-wrenching ..." Sarah Armstrong

"a pummeling rapid of sadness and joy, anger and celebration, churning and thundering ... it will leave you breathless." Sophie Beer

"Kate Foster's words are a lyrical advocacy for inclusivity, and Bec's story will offer hope and understanding to many young readers." Karen Comer

"We are in desperate need of voices like this that uplift and make visible, the lived experience of disability while highlighting what discrimination and allyship looks like." Shirley Marr

Here are the teachers notes from Scholastic.

Age recommendations: Here we go again - please, please publishers don't suggest young readers for books that are clearly intended for a Young Adult audience - ages 12+. The publisher says 10+ but I suggest this is a book for a High School library not Primary. I am SO pleased to see this book on the High School list of the Scholastic Standing order. 

Like a river,

I must keep flowing,

finding a way through

if I want to survive.

I will adapt

no matter the pain this causes me.

I will paint on a mask

and hide my struggles.

But can I be strong

like a river?

I previously talked about these books by Kate Foster:

The Unlikely Heroes Club

Small Acts

CBCA 2026 Book of the Year Award winners

The judges described the book — which also won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for children's literature and Book of the Year and Children's Picture Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards — as "a wonderful mixture of the sophisticated and complex".

All the details of the winners and judges' comments and the video announcement can be found here. 

In an ABC television report Zeno said: "Those little stickers were a sign or a guiding post that this may be worth your time … To now be able to put one of those stickers on my book is hugely meaningful."

I have penned three posts about the winning picture book - Once I was a Giant:

19 September

March 18th

May 22nd, 2026

Here is my post about Inked

Here is my post about The Emperor's Egg

And here are the Honour titles:

Run and Little Bones

The Thing about Christmas and Derek

Bob and Dob

A Wolf for a Spell by Karah Sutton illustrated by Pauliina Hannuniemi

The distrust between the wolves and the witch went back hundreds of wolf generations. No wolf ever interacted with the witch without walking away changed. At least with a human you could search for a knife or an arrow. But the witch’s magic was hidden, and could be used for any number of devious purposes.

Nadya is an orphan. She watches with great sadness when her only and best friend from the orphanage is taken away to be married to the Tsar. 

It was a fairy-tale story of the orphan girl from the woods becoming royalty that would be told by firelight for years. The tsar held to an old forest tradition that anyone who gave him a gift that he deemed worthy would be honored with a royal favor. When he visited the village, Katerina offered him one of her beautifully woven cloaks, soft as a feather and more intricate than a spider’s web. In return he named her to be his bride.

Zima is a wolf pup living alone with her two brothers because their parents have been killed. When her brother is badly injured she desperately needs to save him.

Baba Yaga is an old witch holding onto a terrible guilt. She needs to right this wrong but she is too old to travel far so she is on the lookout for a young wolf pup to use for a switching spell. 

“I must become a wolf. Yet my magic does not allow me to simply transform. I am bound by the laws of the forest, and my magic is always a trade. I need a wolf to switch bodies with me, willingly.”

The lives of these three characters will collide in unexpected ways and I am certain you will be on the edge of your seat hoping for, but not sure if, the story can reach that all important happy ending. Oh and there is also a cheeky raven who can be occasionally very helpful. 

Blurb: Since she was a pup, Zima has been taught to fear humans--especially witches--but when her family is threatened, she has no choice but to seek help from the witch Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga never does magic for free, but it just so happens that she needs a wolf's keen nose for a secret plan she's brewing . . . Before Zima knows what's happening, the witch has cast a switching spell and run off into the woods, while Zima is left behind in Baba Yaga's hut--and Baba Yaga's body! Meanwhile, a young village girl named Nadya is also seeking the witch's help, and when she meets Zima (in Baba Yaga's form), they discover that they face a common enemy. With danger closing in, Zima must unite the wolves, the witches and the villagers against an evil that threatens them all.

Opening sentence: Fear sank its jaws into Zima as she recognized the smell of magic. She pressed her nose to the ground and sniffed again. Like moonlight and decay—it burrowed into her nose, slippery and sinister. She shook her head and huffed to clear out her nostrils.

Here is a description of the tsar: Everything about him was thick and angular. He had an arrowlike nose poking out over the thick beard. When he stood, it was with one foot in front of the other, as though he were ready to begin moving again. His voice rumbled in his square chest.

There are fabulous illustrations in this book:

I picked up this book at a recent charity book sale and read about 1/3 and then because I was going away for a month and because I was SO engrossed in the story and because I cannot carry books in my luggage I also purchased the ebook version to read on the plane. This is one of those 'time is ticking' page turner stories where the 'heroes' have, in this case, only one week until the full moon. 

The cover of this book is also SO appealing and the title in intriguing - it will make more sense after you read the story. And after reading A Wolf for a Spell you will want to hunt out other books about the Baba Yaga and the house with chicken legs. 

Here are a couple of other books I enjoyed that feature wolves:

The Wolf Wilder

Wolf Siren (for readers aged 12+)

A Wolf called Wander

Belonging by Ambelin Kwaymullina

 

"When colonisers came here they brought with them a different kind of story

It was called terra nullius and it said that you could own a place

by claiming that the people who live there are less than you

The terra nullius story was used to dispossess First Nations peoples

and claim ownership of First Nations Countries"

The text of this book is one I would share with a group of older students (aged 10+) without reference to the illustrations which to my eye are misaligned with the serious issues of colonisation and the belonging of First Nations peoples. It is so important for our students to understand that Australia was not a 'terra nullius' back when western explorers arrived. Having shared the text I would then re-read this book and show each full page. The one that resonated most strongly with me is the one with the text I have quoted at the top of this post. 

Thanks to Magabala Books for my review copy of Belonging. Read this thoughtful and detailed review by The Bottom Shelf.

Publisher blurb: Belonging is a First Nations poetic reflection on Country and the everlasting ties that bind us. A lyrical narrative full of the eternal interconnectedness of our families: land, water, sky, earth, space, time, story and language. Belonging shows us how to ‘be here’, to listen, and to care for connections between people and place. Belonging shows we must respect what came before: from Creation to terra nullius, to now, a history and a way of being that shows us how to belong and how we belong.

Illustrated in Kwaymullina’s colourful, entrancing and joyful style, Belonging is the kind of book whose text and images you will return to for years to come, discovering details, nuance, and thought-provoking connections you didn’t notice before.  Readings Melbourne

Ambelin Kwaymullina belongs to the Palyku people of the eastern Pilbara region of Western Australia. She is a neurodivergent writer, illustrator and law academic who works across a range of genres including YA, science fiction, verse and non-fiction. 

Other books by Ambelin Kwaymullina:

The Lost Island by Samantha Wheeler illustrated by Anke Noack

"Oh Theo. You can't spend your life worrying about what might happen ... I think researching your fast facts is making you more anxious, not less.' ... He was wrong. So wrong. My facts were helpful. We were sailing the Pacific Ocean! Thousands of things might happen. We'd already seen jellyfish and rays and a huge octopus. Not to mention the high chance of encountering pirates, or whales, or stormy weather."

Theo (Theodore Boston Bellview) is on a yacht cruise with his dad, stepmother Lyn and stepsister Mozzie (I wonder if this is a short form of a different name?). Theo feels left out and the cruise is very disappointing plus it feels as though his dad is giving all of his attention to Mozzie. He misses their previously close relationship. As this newly blended family journey across the ocean a wild storm hits their boat, and Theo is swept into the sea. Theo is the sort of kid who lives with hundreds of facts and hundreds of worries, so he has bought a survival pack along on the cruise. Luckily his pack is on his back when he falls into the ocean and luckily his stepsister has somehow managed to toss him a life ring. Unluckily the boat sails away and Theo is swept onto a small, presumably deserted tropical island. Surely it will not be very long before Theo is rescued but alas this is not the case. Hunger and more importantly thirst takes over and so Theo feels compelled to walk away even though he knows he should stay put. He desperately needs to find water and eventually he does but even more surprisingly he also finds an older woman who has created a small hut from the rubbish that has washed up on the shore. She has named this Trash Beach.

(She) "wore a filthy lavender-coloured dressing-gown and a tattered sheepskin slipper on one foot and a too-big orange Croc on the other. And (she) lent heaving on a gnarled stick ..."

My first reaction to this book was to laugh at the highly improbable scenario but by the final chapters I was actually enjoying the 'ride' and I did read this book in almost one sitting.  You do, however, have to suspend disbelief in this book although I do realise younger readers aged 9+ won't read this tale with my 'cynical eye'. 

How lucky that Theo:

• has small survival kit containing: a five-piece mini survival pack with screw drivers, a penknife, whistle, compass, a torch and a ferro rod for starting a fire; two small cans of baked beans; a used snake-bite bandage; 3 metres of rope; 3 pencils; a pen and a notepad.
• has participated with his local scout's group where he has learned skills such as knot tying.
• has a head full of fast facts about all sorts of dangers. (These are interesting but also, at times, very funny).

The issue of the way we have polluted our oceans is one you might want to discuss with your library group - this is vividly presented when we read Professor Staggered has made a fence around her hut using discarded toothbrushes. There is also the moral dilemma of finding and exposing an extinct animal knowing it is sure to be exploited if taken out into the world. I also suggest using page 119 if you plan to book talk The Lost Island with your class or library group - it is the scene where Theo covers his skin with stinging nettles - painful yes but also very funny.

I really appreciated the map of the island:

Huge thanks to UQP for sending me an advance copy of The Lost Island - this book was published earlier this month (August 2026). You will find teachers notes and a book extract here. The teachers notes are very detailed and so I suggest you only select a few of the questions as a way to guide a discussion with your class. 

Publisher blurb: Theo thinks there’s nothing worse than being stuck on a Pacific cruise with his dad, new stepmum and annoying stepsister. But when he’s thrown overboard during a storm and washes up on a desert island, he suddenly has much bigger problems. As Theo tackles castaway life – finding food, water and shelter – he discovers the island is full of mysteries: spooky noises, possible ghosts and the strangest birds he’s ever seen. With survival getting tougher by the day and no rescue in sight, Theo is desperate to get back to his family. But to escape the island, he must first unlock its secrets – and reckon with the power of nature.

The Lost Island is an interesting book about nature’s power and survival, and how we can use what we have to get through. Or what we can do to help recycle and keep the world cleaner, but without being didactic about it. The Book Muse

Companion books with the theme of islands and survival:

The Explorer

These are the newer covers for this gripping series

Higher Ground

For an older reader aged 12+