Junior fiction

(8-12 years old)

The Girl, the Dog and the Writer in Rome, by Katrina Nannestad, HarperCollins.

Freja Peachtree and her mum, zoologist Clementine, live for 10 months a year in the Arctic, where nine-year-old Freja, swims with seals and rubs noses with reindeer. At Christmas they go back to London, where Freja hibernates from humans, like a baby hare, under the breakfast table. But when sick Clementine must leave Freja with daydreamer family friend Tobias and his licky dog, the growing up begins. Gorgeous.

Tales from a Tall Forest, by Shaun Micallef, Hardie Grant.

“Growing up, many of my early years were spent as a child,” says Micallef with his trademark humour. The beauty of the book is in its classic spindly black-and-white illustrations by Jonathan Bentley, but the belly is in Micallef’s hilarious chunky fairytales.

The Wonderling, by Mira Bartók, Walker Books.

Delightful one-eared fox Arthur has lived at cruel Miss Carbunkle’s home for “wayward and misbegotten creatures” all of his 11 years. When bird Trinket and he escape, they sleep in stranger Pinecone’s tree cubby, later spying flying bicycles in Victorian Lumentown. A soon-to-be film.

Whimsy & Woe, by Rebecca McRitchie, HarperCollins.

A theatrical journey, beginning with a gruesome game of hide and seek which leaves Whimsy, nine, and her brother Woe, seven, abandoned when their parents never come to find them. They are scooped up by poisonous Aunt Apoline to fetch and carry at her Idle Slug guest house.