Dim's Write Stuff

If you’re after the sort of novel that lulls you effortlessly into mindless slumber, this book is not for you! Where do I begin? Luckily for us all, Craig Silvey begins with the end in his latest rousing novel, Honeybee . It’s an end some of us may have contemplated at some point in life especially those of more tender years enduring emotional turmoil.  It’s a beginning that catapults the reader into the tortured psyches of Sam and Vic, immediately establishing a powerful rapport between them and us, powerful enough to evoke first-class-page-turner status. Sam is teetering on the brink of fifteen but his heart still beats with tween-aged naivety and contorts with young adult anxieties. Fatherless since birth, Sam scrambles from one decrepit address to another with his young incomeless mother. Their bond is tighter than spandex but her creative dreams are stymied by the need to make their frayed ends meet and a spiralling moral compass. Sam looks forward to growing up just like ...

What are little boys made of? Is it really frogs and snails ; everything that is not sugar and spice and all things nice that are otherwise attributed to the makeup of girls? Should blue be the only shade that maketh the man? Debut author illustrator, Scott Stuart blows these outdated tropes well and truly out of the water with this deliriously amusing and tender picture book, My Shadow is Pink . Our intrepid main character’s little face is a picture of consternation after he concedes that his shadow is not the strong blue that trails the other males in his family. His is a delicate shade of rose and mirrors that which he loves most: sparkles, dancing, twirling and dressing up. Despite his father’s reassurances that his shadow will adopt a more ‘manly’ appearance one of these days , and the little boy’s own yearning to fit in with the other acceptable shadow groups, he is unable to dismiss his conflicting feelings. Then one day an invitation to let his shadow dress up in its favour...