Finding Fire by Logan S Kline

"Long before the secrets of fire had been discovered, people had to find fire. And if they lost it ... if it went out ... 

someone would need to search for more."

Blurb: After a hard rain douses the family fire, a brave young boy sets out to search for more fire to bring home before the cold season sets in. Along the way, he’ll face many challenges, from perilous mountains to fearsome predators to raging rivers, and find something wholly unexpected: a friend.

This is a debut picture book for Logan S Kline.

This book could be in your local or school library. Plan to read this book slowly and more than once and make sure you spend time with the title page and prologue.

Library displays are an essential way to circulate the books in your library - surely your goal is to get books into the hands of the kids and not have them languish on your shelves. In the library where I work as a volunteer, the Teacher-Librarian regularly changes her displays and she also fills two under shelf tubs with books specifically designed to appeal to her youngest students aged 3 and 4 (preschool). At the end of last term she set out all her books about rocks and rock related topics like cave people, crystals, and mammoths. This week we packed up those books ready to set out the next topic Halloween but instead of shelving the 'rock books' she decided to pop them into her preschool tubs. Among them I spied Finding Fire. This is a brilliant wordless book that explores, as the title suggests, the need for fire with a prehistoric setting. 

Watch the trailer - it is terrific! Read this interview with Logan S Kline where he talks in depth about his illustration process. 

Rugged, sparse mountains and outcroppings, white-capped rivers, weather, and saber-toothed predators all present varied challenges for the child in the lush, earth-toned illustrations, rendered in graphite, ink, oil paint, and digital techniques. ...  This is a simple but heartwarming story told through a well-balanced variety of panels and full double spreads. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A prehistoric premise best enjoyed cozied up next to a warm, safe fireplace. Kirkus

This tiny but valiant adventure is visually precise enough for lap-sitters and artistically sophisticated enough for primary grade prehistory fans. . . . This will make a good wind-down choice at bedtime or perhaps a candlelit saga to while away a power outage.

—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Logan S Kline cites a few titles in the interview above including the illustrators Chris van Allsburg and David Weisner:

Aaron Becker

Eighty-nine questions for after by Ashleigh Barton

"Every moment matters"

Ester is a tidy girl who carefully regulates her life. She is also a girl with so many fears that she seems to be way too cautious. Everything is sanitised and all dangers are avoided if possible. Her mind is filled with questions which she notes down in her book - one on each page - mostly about unsolved mysteries. She is sure these questions will be answered in the afterlife. Once her life was actually carefree, then her Dad and Grandma Maggie died and so now all she can see is danger everywhere. She even avoids a flowering bush in their garden in case there are bees which could sting her.

"She hopped in on Mum's side of the car and climbed across the console to get into her seat, just in case the hot pink flowers were full of bees. Not that Ester had anything against bees in general, but she had never been stung before and didn't want to take the chance that she was allergic. She wasn't willing to risk having an anaphylactic reaction and ending up in a real hospital with actual sick people. Or worse."

Ester is terrified of getting sick so when mum tells her that after school she will need to wait at the hospice where she works, Ester is certain this will be the worst place ever. Luckily, she is able to sit in the almost empty sitting room with a lovely view of the garden and there she meets a boy named Peter who, unlike others in her life, IS interested in her big book of questions. They sit together each afternoon doing homework and talking about the questions. 

Ester does not want to meet any residents but her mum introduces her to Joan and it is Joan who sets Ester on a course to solve a mystery and along the way to gain courage and make two friends. I am mentioning two friends because aside from Peter a new family have moved in next door and they have four kids including a girl named Mackenzie (Mack). Mackenzie has an ambition to become a Private Eye Detective.

What is the mystery? Joan lost her sister 62 years ago. They were circus performers. All she has is a faded photograph and a flyer from the circus. Can these fragments give Ester and Mack enough clues to solve this mystery and reunite the sisters? They will need to hurry because after all Joan is now living in the hospice and so clearly her life is nearing its end. 

(Did you ever read a book called Boss of the Pool by Robin Klein? The scenes in Eight-Nine questions for after where Ester tries to avoid meeting the people who live in Sunflower Cottage reminded me of that book.)

Publisher blurb: Ester Star is a germophobe and hypochondriac and she's convinced she's going to die. To prepare for her imminent and inevitable demise, Ester keeps a list of all the questions she hopes to have answered in the afterlife - things she knows she'll never have the answers to during her lifetime. What really happened to the dinosaurs? Just how big is the universe? Are ghosts real? She's up to eighty-nine questions and counting. When Ester's usual after-school sitters announce they are moving away, her mum comes up with an alternative arrangement that turns her world upside down. 

Every day after school, Ester is to spend her afternoons with Mum at work. At a hospice. Terrified of all the things she might catch at a hospice; Ester is anxious every second she's there. But soon she meets Joan, an elderly lady who used to be in the circus. Joan tells Ester she doesn't believe in the afterlife, but she does have one question she'll regret never having answered while she's alive. Why did her sister disappear all those years ago, after they had been so close growing up in the circus together? With the help of Peter, another kid who spends his afternoons at the hospice, and her new next-door neighbour, a tech whizz named Mackenzie, Ester sets out to have Joan's question answered. Will Ester realise there's more to life than worrying about dying?

Ester is the main character in this story but it is Mack (Mackenzie) who I really wanted to meet and hug. She is so wonderful in the way she seems to understand Ester and all her fears and phobias but at the same time she is always ready to push Ester to try new, and sometimes, very daring things.

"That's the trick about fear,' Mackenzie said. 'If you act like you're not scared, you'll trick your brain into believing that you're not. That's my theory anyway. It's not always possible, but it usually works for me."

If you grew up in Sydney in the 1960s or 1970s you may well remember the African Safari park - it terrified me. The scene from page 162 onwards would be a perfect way to introduce this book to your library group.

You can hear Asheigh Barton reading the opening chapters of her book here (start at 2.38). In this post for Paperbark Words Ashleigh talks about the inspiration for her book and the research she completed. The publisher Hachette have made a set of book club discussion questions to use with Eighty-nine questions for after. 

Both of these reviews have lots of plot details:

This is a tender book, which is equally heartbreaking and joyous, filled with adventure and experiences, and learning to live. Learning to see life as more than dying and asking the big questions. It is also about friendship and acceptance. Peter and Mackenzie accept Ester for who she is. They don’t judge, and they seem to understand she is the way she is, which I thought was beautiful. She was allowed to have her fears and worries, and allowed to grow throughout the novel. The Book Muse

Those important themes of loss, grief, anxiety, mortality are deftly handled and paired with hope, joy, empathy and kindness. Ester’s character arc is handled with such skill as we see her gentle but sure transformation. There is never a second that this becomes trite or mawkish, it is always essentially authentic and the reader cannot help becoming fully immersed in the plot and, most definitely, liking these characters – even the irascible ones. Just So Stories

I've been a bit of a reading slump for a couple of weeks - until today! I don't know why but I was sure Eight-nine questions for after would be a good book - and now it discover it is so much more - it is a fabulous book and an absolute page turner. I read the whole 271 pages in one sitting. This book will be a CBCA 2026 Younger Readers Notable and hopefully also on the shortlist. I love the way this book has Australian place names but the story still feels as though it will easily translate to an audience in the US or UK. 

Eight-nine Questions for After is a book with a big heart. It is story that I am sure will linger with me for a long time. 

Companion books:

Long Road to the Circus

Picasso and the Greatest Show on Earth

The Remarkable Secret of Aurelie Bonhoffen

As Brave as You

The Goldfish boy

Busted

Magnolia Wu Unfolds it all

Snap (this is a very old book and long out of print)

If you want to build on the idea of asking questions - Ester has a book with 89 questions and luckily they are all listed in the back of the book. Ester's questions are used as Chapter titles - I really liked this structure. Here are some other excellent books filled with questions:

Pablo Neruda Book of Questions

Twenty Questions

Where does pepper come from?

Ashleigh Barton goes from strength to strength with her writing. Here is her web page.  Check out my previous posts:

Freddie Spector Fact Collector

How to sail to Somewhere

My Tiny Universe by Maryam Master

Leif is a unique kid - or at least our insights into his big brain and life experiences make him feel unique. Leif has been born with CIA (Climate Induced Anomalies).  Before you get too worried, I think Maryam Master made up this disease but, in any case, at this time (spoiler alert this book is in set the near future) CIA is not common and in fact Leif is the very first kid with this in the whole world BUT ... being the first kid it means he is subject to all sorts of tests and experiments and this has been going on since he was born. Leif is tired of doctors and hospitals.

What are the symptoms of CIA. Luckily Maryam Master does not go into too much detail but for Leif there is one huge life challenge - he is small - very small. Also, but not connect with CIA, Leif has, as I mentioned, a huge scientific brain which comes from his curiosity about the world of science and his extensive reading on a range of topics. Leif is also a highly self-aware kid. For example, early in the book we learn about all his phobias - these are mostly hilarious such as a phobia of cake icing, the number eight, delivery drones and a fear of phobias - called phobophobia! Leif also has a phobia that you may have too - fear of being without his phone. 

But most of all Leif has a desperate need to make a real friend. 

"I am a certified, card-carrying, genuine science enthusiast. I guess you could say that is the lends through which I see the world. ... I do however fear that it could be this obsession with science that has caused everything else in my life to fall apart. Perhaps it's the reason why most kids my age treat me like I'm a radioactive three-eyed freak. Of course, it could also be my personality. My odd way of speaking, my tendency to notice small details in bit situations ... or it could be my phobias. Which ones you ask? There are simply too many to list ... "

Leif and his family have moved from the Hollow Creek in the OC (Outer Circle) because of a severe drought which has made that area almost uninhabitable. Now they live in Orange Grove in the IC (Inner Circle). 

This story quickly becomes a recount - we read about the events that led to the fire at school which burned down the whole science block. Here is the opening sentence of My Tiny Universe:

"I would like to clarify for the record, one very important, undeniable fact. It wasn't me who burnt down the science block."

Leif has a quirky story voice (which for me could have become slight annoying) so I was pleased to see that Maryam used alternating voices and so we hear his sister's take on the events leading to the fire and almost obsessive relationship with his friend Albie. The switch between narrators is shown with chapter headings and a change of font. It is also clear that Holly can read the chapters written by Leif and when we hear her voice she is able to refute or clarify or elaborate on the Leif version of events.

Publisher blurb: Leif is named after a valiant Viking. But being a two-foot nothing, fraidy-cat kid with a thousand and one phobias is about as far from valiant as you can get. ... He's not one of the cool kids at school. Or the geeks. He's not even one of the misfits. (Have you ever heard of a misfit who didn't fit in with other misfits?) Leif's different in every way, but especially because he was the first kid to be born with CIA (Climate Induced Anomalies). He didn't have a single friend at West Hershey College, before Albie came along. And that's when all the trouble really began.

One really splendid part of this book comes from the way Maryam Master very slowly and almost secretly lets us know that this is the world of the future albeit the very near future. There are dystopian themes in this book such as climate change, but they are not at the forefront of the story. And I didn't really start to think about the time setting until about three quarters of the way through the book.

As an adult reader though, fairly early it in the story, I worked out the 'truth' rather like solving a murder mystery before the detectives have gathered all the clues. Of course, I cannot talk about how I worked this out because that would be a massive spoiler but I will be very interested to hear Maryam Master talking about this book on Sunday (tomorrow) because I expect she will talk about when and why and how she thinks readers will work out 'what is going on here' and her expectations around that discovery for her audience of readers aged 10+.  I will update this post with her comments.

Comment by Rachel Robson Gleebooks: My Tiny Universe is Maryam’s most sophisticated novel yet, she has that wonderful ability to take you into those dark places whilst still showcasing the sunshine and the wonder. Her characters are flawed yet beautiful and they take you on a journey that will have you questioning how we all fit in this crazy universe of ours. I’m so excited to finally see this gorgeous book out in the world and I can’t wait to see the conversations that kids and grown-ups will have about their future and about our connection with each other. ... Hands down, this is book of the year in an ocean of extraordinary book releases.

Here are a few questions I could ask Maryam:

• The opening fire event is very dramatic - was this the first story thread you thought of ?
• When Leif puts on a helmet at the science fair I thought of the famous book Wonder by RJ Palacio. Would you be happy if people compare your story with Auggie's?
• I really like that the setting for your story feels very general and not specifically Australian - was this a deliberate decision?
• I've found some links between your books (see below). As an author do you see overlapping themes and character traits between your stories?
• Do you have a favourite scene in your book? Mine is when Leif runs away - I felt every moment of that train journey and his shock on arriving in his former town and later I gasped when you introduced a 'bot cop' - I think that was the moment I realised we were in a near future/dystopian world.
• How conscious were you of the social commentary in your story about climate change, addiction to technology and AI and the use of and power of Chatbots?

Post update from the event at Gleebooks which was attended by over fifty people including ASLA President Martha Itzcovitz; Alison Cunningham CBCA NSW; a number of school Teacher Librarians; and Paul Macdonald previous owner of The Children's Bookshop. Maryam Master was interviewed by Ursula Dubosarsky. Rachel Robson introduced them both with the most impressive list of awards. Here are the questions:

How did this book begin? Maryam's husband suggested she might explore dystopian ideas and then she thought of the tiny boy living in a vast universe. Yes the world is complex but Maryam is by nature an optimistic person.

Did Maryam know this book is funny? That surprises and delights her. She did want a balance of light and dark.

Was it hard to juggle two narrators and use different fonts and writing styles? No, because she is used to writing scripts. Maryam worked closely with her book designer Astred Hicks. When Maryam wrote the character of Holly it seemed that girl would never shut up - I found that so funny.

Can you see a connection with your own migration to Australia and the need/desire to reconnect with your homeland and the way Leif travels back to his old home? Maryam was delighted by this question and while she had not directly made this connection she conceded it was probably true.

Can you talk about the writing process and your view of the reader? Maryam finds writing can be a struggle. She loves celebrating the final product and is especially thrilled when a young reader writes and tells her their reaction to her story. Readers bring their own experiences to a book and once the book is out in the world it no longer belongs to the author. My Tiny Universe took 9-10 months to write, and it was her high school English teacher who encouraged her to write.

Other news - there might be a movie version of her book No Words and she is pitching a Picture book with publishers right now.

I was right that Maryam invented CIA (Climate Induced Abnormalities). I was also right that Maryam knew just having the voice of Leif could make this story slightly tedious which is why she introduced his sister Holly and used the technique of alternating voices.

My Tiny Universe is sure to be a CBCA 2027 Notable title and I expect it will also reach the shortlist. The cover of this book by Astred Hicks is fantastic - it is sure to grab the attention of kids in libraries and bookshops. Here is a video review. The publisher does have a set of teaching notes/questions but really once again my plea is to just let the readers in your life, classroom or library enjoy the story without doing a micro analysis.

I read it in one sitting, marvelling at the book that looked like a simple tale of school friendships and sibling troubles all mixed in with first person geeky humour, but had become so much more. What book Next

My Tiny Universe by Maryam Master, is a close up exposé of a universal problem; the art of being big when you feel so stupendously small. ... Leify is a beautiful, brilliant and very bruised soul who, like many of us experiencing unwanted change, is grieving in ways no amount of higher thinking can resolve.  Dim's Write Stuff

Companion books:

Wonder

Our sister again

Lenny's Book of everything

The Experiment

The Probability of Everything

Now let's talk about some repeated ideas or themes in other books from Maryam Master that apply to My Tiny Universe. In each previous book we meet an outsider or a kid who is struggling and we are able to experience their life journey and watch and hope they will find true friendship:

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Ana has cancer (non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma) Leif has CIA. Exit through the Gift shop has a reference to Persian tea and in My Tiny Universe Samira (you need to read the book to discover her importance) is Persian. Maryam Master was born in Iran (Persia). 

No words

Aria is the new boy at school - he is mute so, like Leif, we watch him struggle to make friends. Leif tries using a check list of strategies to make friends. A big theme in No Words is the importance of making true friends and for reasons that you will discover when you read it so does My Tiny Universe. And both books have short chapters.

Laughter is the best ending

Zee has no friends and so she is sent to a holiday camp designed for kids with, well as you have guessed, no friends.  Laughter is the best ending also uses changes of font, lists and play scripts. Zee uses more sophisticated language than her peers and so does Leif. Zee talks about the poet Rumi like Leif! And both books also mention Maya Angelou and Shakespeare.

The Queen on our Corner by Lucy Christopher illustrated by Nia Tudor

Begin with the title - the queen (clearly from the cover this is not image of a queen); our corner - so this is set in a familiar neighborhood. Our not the corner. Think about a shared responsibility to help others. 

"I've been trying to tell Ma about the Queen on our corner. She's right there at the end of our road, in the plot of land that never got built on. ... I didn't notice her before either. Like everyone else, I just walked by."

After she warns the people in the town of a dangerous fire late at night things change.

"The people on our street stop and look. And then they see her. They thank the Queen finally. They give her water and blankets but I know what she wants best is her own palace."

Well not a real palace - just a home. 

Blurb: Nobody notices the unhoused woman on the corner. Nobody, that is . . . except one young girl. Through her eyes, the woman who dwells in the abandoned plot is a warrior queen, with many battles fought and won. When, one day, danger comes to the street and the queen on the corner sounds the alarm, the little girl must find a way to thank her. Can she bring the community together to turn the queen's corner into a home?

This book is an Empathy Lab title. And you could use it to talk about two of the Sustainable Development Goals - 1. No Poverty and 2. Zero Hunger.

I don't always notice dedications but this one from the author is poignant: "To those who see Queens."

The Queen on our Corner is available in paperback so it is title you could consider purchasing for your school library. 

This hopeful tale uses a youthful view of the world to imagine what our society could be like if all people and their experiences were valued and respected, though it leaves caregivers on the hook for explaining to justice-seeking children why the story’s resolution is unlikely in real life. The illustrations match the innocence of the text. Kirkus

The little girl believes the people on her street haven’t noticed the queen and it isn’t until the end of the story, when the queen is hailed as a heroine, that the people ‘see her.’ This would be an interesting theme to explore with children. Is it actually the case that people haven’t seen her? Why might they walk by the queen and not acknowledge her? What does it mean to ‘see’ someone? Should a person, homeless or not, need to prove their worth to be accepted? Just Imagine

Companion books:

Home for Grace

I saw Pete and Pete saw me

This Old Man

The Invisible

It's a no money day

Here are some other books illustrated by Nia Tudor:

The Great Phoenix of London by Lindsay Galvin

"We already mentioned that many sources agree that the phoenix is very old, and there can only be one of them at a time. The myth links to Egypt and Arabia, and is tied to beliefs about the sun god, expecialy in Greek and Egyptian myth. The theory that it arises from its own ashes, or that of the parent bird, are agreed. So it is everlasting."

The Great Fire of London is a topic studied in UK schools and so this is a perfect book for those students because it is a story which combines history with magical realism. Children here in Australia will be unfamiliar with this historical event but the action in this story is sure to make them curious to know more. This book could also be a terrific one to share in a family if you are planning a family holiday in London - you are sure to want to visit St Paul's cathedral after experiencing the gripping scenes at the end of The Great Phoenix of London. The maps in this book are also splendid.

Read more about the Great Fire:

• Kids' Britannica
• History for Kids
• BBC Bitesize
• National Geographic for Kids

In this video Lindsay Galvin talks about her books (one hour).

Lindsay Galvin offers a most exciting, brilliantly researched and presented historically based novel. It’s full of wonder, drama and excitement so that we can scent the embers, feel the fear and realise the destruction. Book Wagon

Among the many things I loved about this book were the illustrations, including maps showing the fire’s spread each day and descriptions of Guild members descending on St Paul’s cathedral to store belongings in what they hoped was the safety of the stone crypt. Bucket chains were formed to throw water from the Thames onto the fire, and there was frantic digging to uncover the underground Fleet River for another water source. The latter two failed, of course. The ending is emotional and stunning. Historical Novel Society

This well-known period in history has never before been brought to life in such an engaging way. Familiar names and places weave their way through the pages pulling together the strands of the story in a manner that makes sense. The Great Fire of London will no longer be just something that happened, but rather, something that happened to real people. Readers will begin to empathise with those who lost their homes and businesses. They’ll see the impact this tragedy had on everyday lives and how communities reacted in fear and disbelief. King Charles II, the Duke of York, the Mayor of London and Samuel Pepys himself highlight the difference between the social classes and how London was so unprepared for such a challenge. Scope for Imagination

The School Reading list (a UK resource) has an excellent detailed plot summary with text examples and discussion questions for The Great Phoenix of London. You can read a book extract on the Chicken House web page. 

I previously really enjoyed this book by Lindsay Galvin:

My Friend the Octopus

The Didakoi by Rumer Godden

 

Image source: Hastings Independent

Kizzy is a Diddakoi - half gypsy half Irish. She lives with her grandmother in a gypsy caravan and with her beautiful old horse Joe. The gypsy camp is on some land owned by Admiral Sir Archibald Cunningham Twiss. 

"He had put aside the orchard for the travellers and laid on water, a tap and a trough for them, though the village did not approve."

Kizzy does not go to school but then one of the 'do-gooders' in the town tells the authorities and so she is forced to attend. On the first day the girls taunt her about her secondhand clothes so that night she destroys them and from then on turns up at school in her own ragged clothes and boots. Kizzy's grandmother is very old and sadly one day she dies while Kizzy is at school. After the funeral poor Kizzy has to endure the burning of their caravan (a gypsy tradition) - her only home and the one place she has felt safe is now gone. Kizzy tries to run away but she becomes very unwell. Admiral Twiss takes her home and he and his two male servants - Peters and Nat - nurse her back to health but the town will not allow her to stay in the big house. The matter goes to court and it feels for a moment that Kizzy will be sent to a children's home but at the last minute a new single lady who has moved into a local cottage offers to care for Kizzy. 

Olivia Brooke is a woman of enormous good-sense and kindness. She does not chide Kizzy or punish her. Instead she is patient while Kizzy adjusts to her new life and copes with her grief. But school is still torture. The gang of girls attack her so viciously on the way home each day - they trip her, the tie her ankles with a rope, and the ram her into a tree. It is a dreadful scene but luckily Miss Brooke is there and she finds exactly the right way to stop this and make sure all the girls feel enormous remorse.

"They gang up on a particular child ... if one clamps down as Mrs Blount did, it goes underground and it's worse for the victim. How can it be dealt with?' ... 'For a moment they thought they had killed Kizzy. They won't forget that ... it's a children's war. Let the children settle it."

Kizzy spends a few days at home and then she makes a plan to run away. She simply cannot go back to that school. She will take her horse Joe and a few supplies and ride off but on the day she plans to do this she is taken to the big house and told her horse has died. 

There were two points while I was reading this book that I just had to stop and walk away. That scene I mentioned where Kizzy is badly bullied by a large group of girls in her school. And later when the girls come to visit and she accidentally pours petrol on a fire which I was sure would end in disaster.

There are also some absolutely heartwarming moments in this story - such as when Miss Brooke and the Admiral set up Kizzy's room with furniture from the big house; when the Admiral makes Kizzy a small replica caravan; and near the end when she is gifted a beautiful dress that matches exactly the one in the portrait of the young Kezia Cunningham - the admiral's grandmother. Miss Brooks also makes delicious food, and she is happy to eat outside near a fire with Kizzy in the same way Kizzy did this with her grandmother. 

Here are a few text quotes to give you a flavour of this classic book which was first published in 1972.

"Mrs Blount had touched a sore spot; in Kizzy's family, as in some gypsy clans, a child is given three names: a secret one whispered by its mother the moment it is born and, when it is grown, whispered again into the child's ear; a private or 'wagon' name which is used only by its own people, and a third open name by which it is known to the world. Kizzy seemed only to have one, but that was because she was what they called her, a 'diddakoi', not all gypsy."

Kizzy does not know the date of her birthday. 

"There was another side to birthdays Mrs Blount did now know; the girls got you by your arms and legs and bumped you on the asphalt playground, once for every year, and they pulled your hair for the number of them with extra tugs 'to make your hair grow' and 'for luck'. ... but they did not like to touch her dirty boots so they tugged her hair instead, handfuls of her mop of dark curls. Kizzy had red patches on her scalp every day now and they ached at night."

The Didakoi won the Whitbread Award in 1972. Other winners that may be familiar to you were: The Battle of Bubble and Squeak by Philippa Pearce, The Witches by Roald Dahl, The Great Elephant Chase by Gillian Cross, Skellig by David Almond, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling, The Explorer by Katherine Rundell, Voyage of the Sparrowhawk by Natasha Farrant, The Skylarks War by Hilary McKay.

The Costa Book Award for Children's Book, formerly known as the Whitbread Award (1971–2005), was an annual literary award for children's books, part of the Costa Book Awards, which were discontinued in 2022, the 2021 awards being the last made. In 1976 the BBC made a television series based on this book and in 2002 it was released again with a new title and cover:

Just so you don't get confused I discovered that in1940 Rumer Godden wrote a novel for adults with the title Gypsy Gypsy. She wrote over twenty novels for adults and twenty-five books for children.

The Diddakoi made me think about The Present Takers by Aidan Chambers which contains terrible and vicious bullying. The Present Takers upset me so much it is not a book I could easily ever re-read. I am so glad I discovered The Didakoi and I especially loved the fairy-tale ending and touches of a love story but Kirkus roundly condemn it and so does this reviewer. 

I picked up The Diddakoi at a recent charity book sale. To my eye this book has stood the test of time and it is still available. I guess you need to make your own judgement about its appropriateness. As a child I loved books by Rumer Godden (1907-1998) and more recently I also enjoyed The Story of Holly and Ivy. 

The Fairy Doll

Six Summers of Tash and Leopold by Danielle Binks

The title of this book is quite intriguing. You need to think about it both before and after reading this newest book by Danielle Binks. Before reading the title made me think was a Young Adult title - perhaps a first love story. And after reading this proved to be untrue. Also, the name choices are interesting. One is an abbreviated name and the other a full name. This could say Alytash and Leopold; or Tash and Leo.  As for the six summers you need to read the beginning of the book carefully to understand this idea. 

Tash's real name is Alytash Simons (a name I had no idea how to pronounce as I was reading) but she prefers to be called Tash. Leopold Zając has many names. His mum calls him Myszko which means mouse in Polish. His Uncle Alek calls him Lew which means lion also in Polish but in reality, he just wants everyone to call him Leo. Oh, and it would be great if everyone took the trouble to learn how to say his last name: Zye-onse.

Tash is unwell and has been in hospital for extended periods. She is sure her cancer will return, and she is terrified of this. This partly explains why, after years of friendship, she now seems to have rejected her friend Leo. She does not want to think about her life before or be reminded that she is 'the cancer girl'. Tash is staying home for now and homeschooling. 

Leo has his own demons. Dad has had to move away to live with his own parents in Western Australia because his gambling addiction has nearly ruined their family. Leo misses him dreadfully. 

As this story opens as Grade 6 is ending and so over the coming months Leo will start high school but instead of going to the local public comprehensive one, he has won a scholarship to the prestigious Como College. Leo is worried about leaving his only friend Rami and he is also dreading the long journey to reach this distant school each day. And he knows he has to live up to his mum's expectations. Then Leo discovers he simply cannot go to school. He is not deliberately avoiding high school but his anxiety is so acute he simply cannot attend. He can do his schoolwork at home but he simply cannot leave the house to catch the train. 

At the end of Grade 6 a couple of significant things have happened. Leo experienced his first dreadful panic attack and to make matters worse this happened in front of all the Grade 6 kids at the end of year waterslide day. Tash has not spoken to him in over a year and then suddenly she wants his help to deliver a letter to a lady, Mrs Shepparson, who lives nearby.

Mrs Shepparson has her own terrible life issues to deal with. Her son died aged twelve in the storm water drain, she is suffering from acrophobia, and developers are harassing her wanting to buy her sweet little house which is full of memories and colours. The only company she has is her dog named Rosie. And those letters (there seem to be lots of them) are a mystery. Then tragedy strikes and it seems the developers are to blame. All these things need to come together. Leo and Tash need to get to know Mrs Shepparson; Leo and Tash need to heal their friendship; and the bullying by the developers of the new housing estate must be uncovered and stopped.

Danielle Binks creates a strong sense of place in her book although it is fairly Melbourne centric. Having visited a few Melbourne suburbs (I do not live there) I could, however, easily visualise the street, culvert and storm water drain which are the main focus of the story. I read that the real suburb is Noble Park in Melbourne.

Blurb: Alytash and Leopold - Tash and Leo - are neighbours who used to be best friends, but aren't anymore, for reasons that Leo doesn't entirely understand. But now it's the last week of Year Six and Tash is standing in Leo's front yard with a misdelivered letter - and a favour to ask. It's a request that will set off a chain of events in their little crescent in Noble Park, a suburb that is changing, and fast. As they solve an unfolding neighbourhood mystery and help Ms Shepparson, a reclusive neighbour with a tragic past, Tash and Leo each has to confront fault lines in their own recent histories and families. They will discover that friendships can grow and change, that bravery takes many forms, and that, most of all - whatever the future holds - friends and family are what matter.

I think readers aged 11+ either at the end of Primary school or in High School will enjoy Six Summers of Tash and Leopold. I do like the cover. My label for this book is Young Adult - I wonder if this book has been submitted for the CBCA Book of the Year Awards 2025 and if it has, I think it might be a notable title.

Here are a few text quotes:

"I think it's a pretty good test of a friendship, being apart for a while and coming back together again, seeing if it makes you feel more or less like yourself."

"The past can never be changed, but 'history' is ongoing - we try to understand what happened, and we find new evidence or new accounts that fill out our understanding and provide new context. Which means history is an ongoing conversation that we can always learn more about, but the past is a fixed point that's just kind of there waiting for us to dig up and better understand. "

"Everyone keeps telling me that the cancer isn't back, that I've been given the all clear,' she made bunny rabbit air quotes with her fingers, ' but all I can hear is yet."

"It's easy for historians - they look at the past like rewinding a movie, able to skip backwards and forwards seamlessly so that all the events line up and make sense, dominoes falling in place along the timeline. Uncertainty doesn't factor in once the story's been written, and it's easy to forget the people in the middle of all that history, who never knew whether or not things would work out in the end."

Reading reviews of Six Summers of Tash and Leopold I made some discoveries - things I might not have thought of:

1.  It is essential to turn back to the beginning of this book and re read the letter Leo writes to Tash, which is how the book begins and yes, it is how the book ends too. 

2. The publisher has likened this book to Bridge to Terabithia and I thought oh no surely not but - well you need to discover why this is actually one book you could connect with Six Summers of Tash and Leopold.

Read this extensive interview with Paperbark Words and Joy Lawn. 

Review quotes:

This is really a book that displays the human condition at its best and worst, and we just love the characters all the more, for it. Both Tash and Leopold are authentic kids who we care deeply about, and they live on long after the book is finished. Fabulously for a YA novel, the conclusion makes you re-open the book at the first page to read again what you have already absorbed – a genuinely brilliant inclusion.  Kids' Book Review

The Six Summers of Tash and Leopold is also filled with wonderfully diverse characters. Leo has Polish heritage, Tash has mixed race South African heritage, and the peripheral characters come from various backgrounds: Rami is Indian, Fatemah has Muslim heritage, and the librarian at their primary school is non-binary. The Book Muse

As they solve an unfolding neighbourhood mystery and help Ms Shepparson, a reclusive neighbour with a tragic past, Tash and Leo each must confront fault lines in their own recent histories and families. They will discover that relationships can grow and change, that bravery takes many forms, and that, most of all – whatever the future holds – friends and family are what matter. Buzz Words

I do, however, need to do a little nit picking about this book. I really did not understand why the Primary School Teacher-Librarian was a non-binary person with the courtesy title Mx Chambers. I'm always happy find a kind, sympathetic, and in this case, wise teacher-librarian in any story or school library, but I found this character label inclusion a little contrived. I did do some research because this term was new to me, in fact at first I thought it was a typo, and here is what I discovered: Mx. is a title that indicates neither marital status nor gender. The Reading Time reviewer agrees with me about this small point. 

Speaking of typos - sorry I did warn you I was going to be a bit picky - if you have this book in your hands turn to page 225. I feel there might be a word missing from this sentence. It is not crucial to the plot but it confused me:

"At that, I threw my arms around Tash - pinning her own in place if only so I could help warm them - and I felt her turn her head and rest her cheek atop my head."

Is this meant to say pinning her arms in place? or pinning her hands in place? We have read in the previous section that it is winter, and they are both quite cold.

One more problem - sorry again. Leo and his former friend Rami are library monitors, or as they are called in this book Library Leaders. Clearly Danielle Binks does appreciate libraries. The Primary school library sounds terrific in contrast with the non-staffed, high tech, impersonal, and 'all for show' posh high school library. Early in the book Leo quotes his mum who quotes Professor R David Lankes - 

"Bad libraries build collections, good libraries build services, great libraries build communities."

I watched this video by Danielle Binks from her Instagram page and I know she deeply appreciates school libraries but there is a small error in her story (well it feels like an error to me). Some libraries use little paper slips to record the date a book is due back - this was certainly a standard library procedure in the past. The little slips are called date due slips, not catalogue cards. As a teacher-librarian this sentence gave me a bit of a jolt (sorry I know this is so trivial). You can see examples below.

"Over the break I received a letter in the mail ... from Librarian Chambers. I guess they meant to give it to me at graduation, but then I didn't go. It was an old-school library catalogue card - the ones that used to be taped into the back of library books to show how many times a title had been borrowed, before everything got digitised."

Date Due slip ready for date stamping

Cards in a card catalogue

Companion books:

Grace Notes

The Year Mrs Montague Cried

The Honest Truth

Exit through the gift shop

A Good Night for Shooting Zombies