Little Bones by Sandy Bigna

Did you know

that if you wish for something

in the stealthy shadows of your bedroom,

if you whisper the words

soft as the brush of a moth's wing,

if you feel the words rush through your blood,

your wish might come true.

What was this wish?  Bones has found a tiny bird skeleton.

I close my eyes for a moment,

then whisper

will all the longing in my heart,

I wish I could talk to you,

I wish you were alive.

There are five kids in this story. Bones and two other girls who are just finishing Primary school - Akio and Edie. Akio was a best friend to Bones but then along came - Edie and everything changed. And then a new kid who moves in next door named Tenny. Tenny is gender neutral:

Tenny kicks their legs against the dumpster,

just staring and chewing gum.

And the fifth kid is Nico. Spoiler we gradually discover he has died in a terrible accident. Bones now lives with her Nonna because mum has left to work up North. They do talk on the phone but the connection is often disrupted by bad reception and Bones misses her desperately.

Here are some text quotes to give you an idea about the tone and plot of this story:

It was Edie who gave me my nickname:

Bones.

She thinks it's an insult

but I've claimed it as my own.

Bird has a sweet sense of humour:

'Oh ...

umm ... I guess I meant

I wished you were alive

the way you once were,

with feathers and skin and ...'

Bird stares at me

with his hollow eye sockets.

'Well, you could have specified that.'

Wishing for a once-living thing

to be alive again,

the way it was,

goes against the laws of nature.

I cannot be as I was,

so the moons' power has transformed me into

something

no creature should be.

Bones has no idea how to reverse the curse but then she remembers her brother had a book called The Encyclopedia of Moon Magic. Alas, when Tenny and Bones go to the library they discover the book is out on loan. Now the hunt is on. They need to find this book, and they need to complete the ritual with Bird by the light on of the next full moon. Wait any longer and Bird will be trapped forever. There is also another major problem. Bones cannot, will not, ever return to that place in the forest. (Note the library visit scene on pages 84-87 would be a great passage to use if you are book talking Little Bones although this does contain the spoiler that Nico has died). 

There are several references to the story of Icarus in this book so familiarity with this famous myth could help the reader anticipate Nico's fatal accident. As the text says:

His favourite was

the story of Icarus

(the boy who flew so close to the sun

that his wings melted

and he fell

to his watery death).

I am not sure if this word is too strong but in some ways the journey taken by Bones to restore Bird back to his resting place feels like atonement. And there are also themes of grief, healing, and making new friends. Bones has witnessed the fatal fall of her brother as he climbed a tree to return a baby bird back to its nest. It was at her urging that he was hurrying. 

When I opened the parcel from University of Queensland Press (UQP) I actually squealed - a verse novel! An Australian verse novel! Little Bones is a debut novel for Sand Bigna. This book will be published on 4th March. It is always wonderful to share verse novels with students in a library. This one will be enjoyed by readers aged 10+. I also expect to see Little Bones listed as a 2026 CBCA Younger Readers Notable title. 

Here are the teacher notes - they are very detailed. You can meet the author at an event in Canberra on 19th March, 2025.

I was interested to read this from Sandy Bigna. You can find her on Instagram.

How did Little Bones come to be? Much of this book was written over a summer break when I had the freedom to dream, play and create. The voice of Bones came to me first, and along with her voice came an image of a lonely girl who collected animal bones and was dealing with issues of loss and fractured friendships. The story idea was inspired by my own fascination with animal bones – the symbolism of them, the way they tell a story of life rather than death. Growing up in Canberra, with its rich and evocative wetlands, bushland and forest areas, inspired the setting for this story.

Other books and verse novels that explore the loss of a sibling or a significant family member. In each of these we follow the journey of grief through to some level of acceptance or restoration.

Right as Rain

My Brother Finch

It is interesting to link Nico with Finch because both boys really embrace life.

Bird

The Probability of Everything

Telephone of the Tree

Picasso and the Greatest Show on Earth

Bridge to Terabithia

Meet me at the Moon Tree

Wild wings

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

My Brother Finch by Kate Gordon

"Tomorrow is going to be amazing. Tomorrow is going to change my life.' If I'd known then - if I'd have even had an inkling of how - I'd have torn my soul apart to protect him, to change the future, to make sure tomorrow never happened. But I had no idea. 

No control. No power. Tomorrow came. And my brother disappeared."

Born just eleven months apart in some ways Wren feels as though Finch is her twin sibling. But in other ways she has always felt displaced. Wren is a quiet girl who does not stand out whereas Finch is a loud boy who everyone immediately warms to. Even their parents seem, to Wren, to treat Finch with more love and attention. 

"We were connected, tied together, linked in a way closer than any of those kids whose siblings are their best friend. We were like twins. Like two halves. But when Finch wanted me to be his friend, I just wanted ... To be seen, by anyone else but him. To be important. To be number one."

"You are normal Wrennie. You're what you're meant to be.' I knew he meant it kindly - as a compliment in fact. But it felt like a slap. Being normal meant I wasn't like him. And everybody loved Finch. Mostly they just ignored me."

The family go on an outing to a disused coal mine. Finch is so excited to explore the ruins. Their mother is slightly overprotective but on this day their father says it is all okay and Finch should be allowed to explore a little further on his own. Within minutes, Wren who has been taking photos of the clouds with her camera, realised something feels wrong. 

These are all events from three years ago. Finch has never been found. The family members, each in their own way, are deeply grieving. There are of course several possibilities - kidnapping, misadventure or that he just wandered away. Knowing this does not help. And Wren is certain all of this is her fault. Nor does the fact that two young children disappeared that day - Finch and another younger child named Ava. 

"Dad cries all the time. He cries loudly and painfully and - I suppose he thinks - in secret behind the bathroom door."

Finch was just nine when he disappeared. Wren is now moving onto Year Seven at a different school. Her old friends, friends from Kindergarten, have drifted way. Wren's grief has also been too much for them to stay connected. On the first day of High School, though, Wren makes a new friend. Freddie is also an outsider but she is not shy or insecure like Wren. She is bold and seemingly fearless. The two girls team up for a school art project and Wren, who constantly hears the voice of Finch, somehow suggests their topic could, in part, be about missing children. Added to this the girls see another new student in the playground. A girl, maybe a year or two older, who also looks lost and alone. 

Publisher blurb: Finch and Wren were as close as a brother and sister can be. When he vanished, when they were nine years old, her world cracked in two. Finch was never found. On the same day that Finch disappeared, another girl was lost, too. Her name was Ava. Her parents were rich tourists, from Sydney. Ava’s story got all the media attention. And Finch was forgotten. But not by Wren. Never by Wren. Three years on, Finch is still with her, whispering in her ear, guiding her through life. As Wren begins high school and forms a new, bewildering friendship with a mysterious girl called Freddie, Finch is there, urging her on. To go bolder. To go braver. To grab life with two hands. When another girl goes missing – a strange girl called Johanna – Wren feels compelled to search for her. To her surprise, Freddie does, too. The two of them try and piece together who Johanna is and why she ran away. Or did she run away? Was the truth more awful? And was it all tied together with what happened to Finch and Ava?

Here are some teaching notes from the publisher. 

I just want to mention one sentence in this book - just to show the power of Kate Gordon and her writing. This description is something all Australian kids and adults will relate to:

"I look up, Ms Jermy is standing over us. ... She has bells on her sleeves, and they play music that reminds me of ice cream trucks. Of how - when we were little - Finch would always scream when he heard one, leap to his feet and run to Mum yelling 'Please! Please!' as if the ice cream from the truck was any better than the ice cream in our freezer. I guess it was. It was a bit more magical. But maybe it was only Finch who made it that way."

This book is for mature readers aged 11+. It does contain difficult themes of grief but it also has a very open ending. Less mature readers may have difficulty with the seemingly unresolved conclusion - this could be their first encounter with a book that does not neatly end with "and they all lived happily ever after." The story is told by Wren but it is interspersed with the voice of Finch presented in free verse. 

I am certain My Brother Finch will be a CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) Younger Readers Notable title. Kate Gordon's writing just goes from strength to strength. I think this is her best book (of the ones I have read) so far. 

My Brother, Finch brings in themes around sibling relationships and the way we see ourselves in our families, which will be relevant to young people at a time in their lives when they are forming and changing their view of themselves and the world around them. It is a special book with powerful messages and stunning use of language that will stay with you as you get on with your life. Helen Ward Writes

My Brother, Finch is an allegory to grief and loss and the oscillation between hope and hopelessness that people must feel when a loved one goes missing. How can you grieve when you never really know what happened? And how can you move on with your life, how can you let them go, when there’s a chance, however small, that they are still out there somewhere? Helen Ward Writes

This story will keep you curious until the very end. It will also pull on your heart strings. Keep some tissues handy! Buzz Words

It sensitively explores the difficulties in moving on after tragedy and is ultimately a message of hope. The reader is left with the sense that this grief never ends, but it doesn’t preclude experiencing lives of friendship and love. This exquisite, heart-warming story seems destined to win awards and will be enjoyed by readers aged 11 and older. Storylinks

My brother Finch had a big impact on me and my thoughts turned back to it for days after finishing. While reading it, I kept thinking how brilliantly Gordon has created an authentic 12-year-old character and realistic descriptions of her strong emotions, as well as believable family and friend relationships. And cleverly, too, Finch is very much a central character in the story, as part Wren’s imagination and memories. Reading Time

Award-winning author Kate Gordon tells an incredible story through both prose in the form of short sentences and clever verse. This novel will tug at your heart strings and leave you longing for closure. The ending may not be what you are expecting but the incredible use of language to explore the characters, their emotions and their struggles make this story a compelling read.  ReadPlus

Companion books:

Bird

Right as Rain

Telephone of the tree

The Probability of Everything

Picasso and the greatest show on earth

Read my blog posts about these other books by Kate Gordon:

Xavier in the Meantime

Aster's good, right things

The Calling of Jackdaw hollow

The Heartsong of Wonder Quinn

Manjhi moves a Mountain by Nancy Churnin illustrated by Danny Popovici

Publisher blurb: When a mountain separates Dashrath Manjhi's poor village from schools and hospital, he sees a solution no one else can imagine. Using only a hammer, chisel, and twenty years of exhausting work, Manjhi shows that one determined person can wear down even the most massive of problems.

This is an incredible true story - one I only just discovered today.

Here are a few facts which will expand on the publisher blurb above.

• Manjhi was born in 1934 and he died in 2007
• A mountain blocked Gehlar a village near Gaya in Bihar, India from another village called Wazirgani.
• Wazirgani had running water, doctors, a school and jobs. People in Gehlar live in poverty.
• Manjhi's wife, Falguni Devi, fell on the mountain trail. She died because Manjhi could not reach medical help in time.
• Manjhi decided their village needed access to Wazirgani and so he worked with hand tools after work each day chipping away at the mountain.
• He cut a road 360 feet long, 30 feet high and 25 feet wide. It took him 22 years.
• This book has won numerous awards and has been translated in to 18 languages. 

Here is the road carved by hand by Manjhi:

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Churnin’s prose has an elegance appropriate for her inspiring tale, which is based on a true story. Popovich’s double-page illustrations use a warm palette and are nicely composed. Kirkus

Here is a set of teaching notes from the publisher Creston Books. My friend at Kinderbookswitheverything collects picture book biographies in her school library. The power of these stories comes when you read about wonderful people who do amazing things and yet are often people you may have never heard of. For example I discovered Maria Merian through the biography Summer Birds and Emmanuel's Dream the story of Emmanuel Ofosu when I read the book by Laurie Ann Thompson. These are not related to the book I am discussing here today but they are powerful stories which linger with me.

I am keen to see another book by Nancy Churnin which compares the lives of Anne Frank and Martin Luther King Jr. who were born in the same year. "Both faced ugly prejudices and violence, which both answered with words of love and faith in humanity. This is the story of their parallel journeys to find hope in darkness and to follow their dreams." Booktopia

The Life and Time of Lonny Quicke by Kirsty Applebaum illustrated by Matt Saunders

Back cover blurb: What if you could save lives? What if, with just the touch of your hand, you could stop an animal, or even a person, dying? You'd do it, wouldn't you? But what if it meant you got older each time? Older and older ... until you had not time left yourself. Would you do it then?

Lonny lives with his father, grandfather and younger brother, Midge, in a remote part of the forest. Very early in the story you will get the sense that this family are hiding. As the story opens Lonny comes upon a rabbit that has been attacked by a fox. The rabbit is only minutes away from death. There is a strong buzzing in Lonny's head. Lonny has a special power. He reaches out and gently touches the rabbit. As Lonny watches the wounds are healed and the rabbit jumps up and hops away. But as you read in the blurb above there is a price for this healing. Lonny has aged a little more. He is twelve but he looks and sounds much older. This is not the first time he has touched a dying creature.

The family are only just surviving in their remote hide away. Mr Quicke repairs old pocket watches but there as not too much demand for these. When a fox kills all but one of their precious chickens Lonny decides to head into the nearest town called Farstoke for work. The lady who buys the repaired watches offers to take him and Midge also tags along. When they arrive in the city everyone is preparing for a festival - the festival that celebrates Lifelings. People in Farstoke have created stories about Lifelings. Many people probably don't even believe they are real but Lonny is a Lifeling and Alison, mother of his new friends Erin and Katy is gravely ill. Click these review quotes for more plot details.

Sometimes middle grade literature can pose the biggest questions with such grace, and this is one of those titles. Did you Ever stop to Think

As with all of Applebaum’s works, friendship runs strongly as a theme throughout with the constant pull of opposing forces drawing the reader into the action of the story – safety and freedom, life and death, friendship and isolation.  Just Imagine

Have you read Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt?  This book poses similar questions about power over life and death. 

The Life and Time of Lonny Quick is one of those books that became my reading obsession last week. I kept trying to snatch reading minutes so I could find out what would happen to Lonny. I want to give this book five stars but, while the ending was very, very dramatic, the final pages were a little too perfect (and devastating) but having said that please please don't let that stop you reading this wonderful and thought provoking book. I also had a few unanswered questions about Lonny's grandfather - but again this is not meant to be a criticism. 

Nosy Crow blurb: Lonny is a lifeling. He has the power to heal any living creature and bring it back from the dead. But he pays a price for this gift – by lengthening the creature’s life, he shortens his own. So Lonny has to be careful, has to stay hidden in the forest. Because if people knew what he could do, Lonny would be left with no life at all…

You can read the first few pages on the Nosy Crow web site. This book was published only two days ago (as I pen this post). The paperback edition is fairly expensive but I do highly recommend this book for readers aged 10+.  With just 270 illustrated pages and a very fast paced plot this is a book you will want to devour in one or two sessions. Huge thanks to Beachside Bookshop for my advance copy of The Life and Time of Lonny Quicke.

One more thing.  Have a think about the title.  The Life - Lonny's life - and time - time is precious, time is short, we all live one life - of Lonny Quicke.  If you think about the bible words "the quick and the dead" quick in this context means alive and quicken (verb) means revive or make alive. 

I loved a previous book by Kirsty Applebaum - Troofriend. And I have just ordered her first book The Middler. 

Matt Saunders (illustrator of The Life and Time of Lonny Quicke) also designed the cover for The Threads of Magic.

A Glasshouse of Stars by Shirley Marr

 "This book is bursting with colour and heart" 

Libby Armstrong Beachside Bookshop

I am going to begin with two text quotes to give you a flavour of this writing.  Here are the first sentences from the opening pages;

"You have arrived for a better life at the New House in the New Land. It has been a long journey, the first time you've ever been on an aeroplane. It was nerve-racking when they checked the suitcases at the airport, even though your family has next to no possessions, let alone anything to hide."

Shirley Marr tells us so much from these few sentences but she also leaves so many unanswered questions. Where is the New Land? Who owns the New House? Where have the family travelled from? Why do they have so few possessions? Its been a long journey - is our narrator a refugee? If she is how did she come to travel by aeroplane?

The New House which Meixing calls Big Scary, was owned by First Uncle. He has died and left the house to his sister and her husband. Ma Ma is expecting a baby. Ba Ba will need to get a job and a car and this will be difficult when he has limited skills with the New Language. The neighbours - Mr and Mrs Huynh are kind and offer food and practical help but they speak another language (I assume Vietnamese) and so their food and customs are unfamiliar to the Lim family. Later we learn Meixing and her family have come from China.

Things at school are also confusing for Meixing. In this scene she needs to cross the road but the procedures with the lollipop man are so confusing:

"He thinks you're a silly girl who doesn't know how to cross the road. And he's right. You are a silly girl who doesn't know how to cross the road. Back where you came from there were hardly any cars. Or roads, for that matter. The workers flats you lived in, the deep wounds in the ground from where the machines took out the precious Earth Dust and the handful of shops were the only blights on the island. Beyond that was jungle and dirt tracks, and you went wherever you wanted. You were wild and free ... "

In the backyard of the new house Meixing discovers a greenhouse. When she steps inside she enters a magical place. First Uncle shows her how to plant seeds as a way to understand the past. Later she is able to share this magic with Kevin Huynh from next door and Josh.  "You know that if you call on the glasshouse in your hour of need, the glasshouse - suspended somewhere between reality and imagination - will never let you down."

It is not often that I say I really dislike a character in a book but in A Glasshouse of Stars the teacher Miss Cicely  is despicable. Her treatment of Meixing feels like child abuse. I shudder to think a teacher would actually speak to or treat a student in the way we witness from Miss Cicely and I do hope Shirley Marr was not subjected to this cruelty but since this story is semi autobiographical I worry that this part might be based on her experience.  Thank goodness for the compassion of the ESL teacher Ms Jardine. So you can  see from these comments that this is a book that makes the reader feel things. I loved the honesty of Meixing; the developing friendships; the fragments of each child's back story which we see in the glasshouse; the crazy aunties who arrive at Big scary; and most importantly the way Shirley Marr lets her reader experience just how hard it is when you don't have language skills to communicate your wants, needs and wishes.

When you pick up this book you may find the writing style is a little challenging. Our students are more familiar with either first or third person narratives.  Shirley Marr explains:

This is a migration story I have been trying to write all my life. But I also spent a lot of my life trying to forget and disappearing into myself. I tried to write it from a first person point of view, but it always felt too close and I would always pull back. Third person also felt so distant, like I was writing someone else's story. I happened to pick up a copy of Deadgirls by Nancy Lee from an op-shop while looking for reading matter while on holiday. I was immediately inspired by the first short story, written in the second voice. As soon as I started writing my story in the same voice, I knew it was right. I knew it was a story I had to tell while the reader walked in my shoes and saw some of the things I saw and experienced when I was a child.

The cover of A Glasshouse of Stars is beautiful. The art is by Cornelia Li. My copy of A Glasshouse of Stars came from Penguin Random House. In the UK Usborne have given this book a different cover. I love comparing covers with students. Take a look at this review.

Here is the blurb from Readings in Melbourne: 

Meixing Lim and her family have arrived at the New House in the New Land, inherited from First Uncle who died tragically and unexpectedly while picking oranges in the backyard. Everything is vast and unknown to Meixing and not in a good way, including the house she has dubbed Big Scary. She is embarrassed by the second-hand shoes given to her by the kind neighbours, has trouble understanding the language at school, and with fitting in and making new friends. Her solace is a glasshouse in the garden that inexplicably holds the sun and the moon and all the secrets of her memory and imagination. Her fragile universe is rocked when tragedy strikes and Ma Ma refuses to face the world outside. Meixing finds herself trapped within the shrinking walls of Big Scary. Her parents said this would be a better life for them all, but it feels like the worst and most heart-breaking experience of Meixing’s entire existence. Surviving will take all the resilience and inner belief of this brave girl to turn their world around.

Here is another review from The Bottom Shelf and this book also reached Ms Yingling in Columbus, Ohio, United States. Karen Yingling gives, as usual, a great plot summary. While she enjoyed this book she feels it is too "Australian" for her readers.

Here are some companion reads. Just like Wen in Tiger Daugher, Meixing also carries the huge burden of parental expectations.

Tiger Daughter

No ballet shoes in Syria

Front Desk

The Heartsong of Wonder Quinn by Kate Gordon

A friend who saw her heart and loved it and knew it was good.

Wonder Quinn is a student at Direleafe Hall. Every year she watches new students arriving. Every year she hopes one of the new students might truly see her and might become her friend. Wonder only has one friend - a crow named Hollowbeak.  Wonder is an orphan and she lives in the school, in a tiny, out of the way room, which is used to store the old school archives. It is heart wrenching to read:

"The rows of leather-bound books, blanketed in grit .... The candle she kept in an old bottle, for when the nights get too dark ... And her rough woollen blanket."

Look at this word placement - grit, too dark, rough.

Here is another example of the way Kate Gordon hints at the character of Wonder:

"Wonder was quiet. Wonder whispered. Wonder dwindled into the background and she had no particular talents, except that she was good at watching."

It is a new year and a new student does arrive and in an utterly beautiful moment she sits down next to Wonder and she speaks the most precious of words - "Pleased to meet you, Wonder Quinn,' Mable said, with a smile. 'Let's be friends, shall we?"

Mable is a wonderful girl full of energy and good ideas. She has a list which she shares with Wonder, of all the things she wants to do: steal something; leap into the sky; touch a star; make someone feel pure happiness; throw a pie; hold a baby bird. There is one more thing on her list but I am not sharing this because it will spoil the story.

Let's talk about names. Wonder Quinn - she wonders if she will ever find a true friend, she herself is a wonder, and as a reader you will wonder why no one seems to wonder about or indeed even notice her.  Mabel Clattersham sounds like such a warm, old fashioned name. I'd like to be her friend.  Georgiana Kinch is the school bully. Georgiana is a 'posh' name making her sound rich and superior but it is the surname that I really like. Kinch - ryhmes with pinch, and it has such a nasty sound. Wonder has one friend as I mentioned, a crow, called Hollowbeak. He is wise and loyal.

I read The Heartsong of Wonder Quinn in one sitting. It is a story that gently unfolds allowing the reader to gradually "see" the characters and make sense of their lives. As an adult reader I don't find the cover illustration very appealing but readers aged 10+ (probably mostly girls) may be drawn to this sad dark-eyed girl. The print size is large and this is a short book of 172 pages which might make you think it is for a younger audience but I think the writing and themes better suit a slightly older reader.

If you pick up this book (it is due to be published in September) page 150-151 will give you a good way to gauge the tone of this writing. They are my favourite pages - it's a poem from Mable to Wonder.

Publishers often make comparisons with other books as a way of marketing a new title. These can sometimes be a little bit tenuous but with The Heartsong of Wonder Quinn I heartily agree with the UQP suggestion that this book has a similar emotional feel to The Naming of Tishkin Silk and that it could also be enjoyed by fans of Tensy Farlow and the home for mislaid children.

I would pair The Heartsong of Wonder Quinn with Magrit by Lee Battersby.