Dim's Write Stuff

There's a lot swirling around in the universe, depending on which one you're orbiting through. For a diminutive soul like Leif, the cosmos can assume overwhelming proportions which despite his heroic Viking namesake, aren't always easy to overcome by yourself. 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. It takes us a while to realise the full extent of Leif's physical health limitations because he is the kind of kid to deflect concern and pity with intellect and absurdly rationalised thought. This is relayed through his impressive vocabulary and method of delivery which unfortunately also excludes him from more mainstream schoolyard conversation and interactions. Readers have scant time to dwell on this however because as Leif introduces himself, we immediately glean a potentially new and different side of his personality. One with arsonist qualities. One who is no longer th...

It's interesting the number of kids' stories I'm encountering of late addressing social issues surrounding AI and tech advancements. It's little wonder actualisation of this concerning reality is becoming more subject-worthy in kids' lit. Ask any older Gen Alpha or Gen Zer how they feel about the advent of these often-invasive AI platforms and you might be surprised by their response. Middle grade and young adult author, Emily Gale takes this premise and massages it into an action pumped adventure taking us into The Wild Unknown . Incredulously, some 11 or so years ago, I penned a virtual reality YA short story set in 2040. That date seemed eons away at the time but it's the exact decade Eddie and his mate Kit find themselves in The Wild Unknown;  2045 to be precise, but a skip and hiccup around the future corner! It's an interesting future, too. Sophisticated AI tech dominates human existence, dictating outcomes wherever possible, guiding humans who appare...

Several years ago, one of the punchiest, high-powered middle grade fictions I've ever encountered fuelled my interest and reading appetite. Two Wolves by Tristan Bancks gave young readers a crime-based thriller firmly centred around two young children, Ben and his seven-year-old little sister, Olive. Roll forward five years (12 real life ones) and another action infused, edge-of-your-seat drama that will keep kids reading long into the night punches in with,   Raised By Wolves . Although featuring the same Silver family members , Raised By Wolves reads successfully as a stand-alone novel with only a smattering of discreet references to the former that never slacken the pace. Olive is now 12 and fighting her own inner two wolves; the need to know if her errant, criminal father loves her or not with the urge to cut him loose forever. Ben meanwhile is on the precipice of graduating Police Academy fulfilling his desire to fight crime; an ironic twist of fate considering his family m...

We're all guilty. Spurred by an impulse too intense to ignore. Rationale and logic shoved to the backseat in favour of letting impetuousness drive. Despite knowing better, validation for such behaviours is often reduced to a dismissive, all encompassing, we did it anyway, which is the haunting underlying premise of Carla Salmon's latest young teen novel, We Did It Anyway. Hot on the heels of our first encounter with the youths of the coastal Red Sands community, this racy adventure focuses on other erstwhile members of the friendship circle; Alex, Otto and Jasper. The spotlight doesn't just rest on the boys however with Luna and best mate, Milly, firmly lending narrative nouse and balance. Set on the rugged island of Talmar, the group gather to partake in an Easter holiday life-saving club training camp. Opinions oscillate wildly about this; the boys are all up for a bit of freedom. Luna is less convinced about the camping vibe but with the twins' dad there to supervi...

Charlie lives in a regional Australian town with a colourful past. Charlie also has synaesthesia. To describe her as supersensative is not quite right. She just senses things differently, intensely. Days of the weeks have colours. People have auras and sounds have scents.  She's accustomed to her unique ways of perceiving the world, it is after all all she has ever known. But when Japanese exchange student, Kenichi is relegated to her dead brother's bedroom for part of her new school term, Charlie's senses intensify to the point she begins to suffer flashbacks accompanied by violent and unpredictable visceral reactions.  Despite Charlie's determined stance to keep Kenichi, aka Ken, at arm's length (loving the Japanese culture is her mum's jam not hers), they soon come to realise they are inextricably linked not only to each other but to unravelling a puzzling mystery surrounding the infamous Cowra Breakout.  Sandy Fussell has a natural flow and rhythm to her st...

Ripping up roots can cause wilt; in saplings at least and, as it turns out, in young human beings like Queenie Jean Anderson. Queenie is a girl with a passion to rock and roll. At least, she plays a mean guitar but what she has in raw talent, she lacks in confidence. Stricken with stage fright and the belief that her ex-bestie, Sparrow, will out best her every time, Queenie chooses to flee at every given opportunity rather than face the possibility of abject failure. Leaving, exit stage left, is one thing but when she and her mother are forced to move from their rented ramshackle home, aka Peachy, things take on a more desperate and tension-filled tone. Salvation comes in the form of temporary refuge in Queenie’s mum’s place of work, the Diamond Sands Seniors Village. Adaptation is the key to survival and Queenie soon becomes the oldies’ favourite but the situation is short-lived and so begins a hopscotch journey from one place of abode to another. Throughout this pell mell of movi...

Fate and circumstance are curious things that can set storytelling wheels in motion with the most extraordinary outcomes. From the dexterous mind and unfathomable imaginings of Kate DiCamillo comes a new, spellbindingly illustrated fiction that bewitches and bemuses. Five exquisite puppets each with a personality and power peculiar to their maker’s whimsy are locked in a trunk after their former master forsakes them, their story and himself. And that is where their real story begins. An adventure, a quest, a parody of unfortunate near disasters, twists and awkward turns that involves each of the puppets in turn and ultimately as a one for they are all in the same story. Of this they are certain and so vow to each other to remain in the telling until the end. Their journey evokes wonder in simple beauties that are easily overlooked; the colour of moonlight through an open window for instance. The vagaries of misguided vanity. The heartbreak of unrequited expectations. And like the ...

Katrina Nannestad has well and truly cemented her position as one of Australia’s most accomplished historical fiction writers with her latest novel, Silver Linings . Most of us are aware that clouds have them, silver linings that is, but what exactly do they mean and do they really exist? Nettie Sweeney sure thinks so. Nettie’s story, set in the 1950s, reads as a middle grade novel yet champions Nettie Sweeney as the young protagonist who has just started primary school. Nettie’s tender years, beguiling naivety and childlike foibles are neatly offset however by the fact that she is the fourth daughter of a farming family with the ability to write and think beyond her years. Couple this with the assured determination of a person set on visiting the moon and you’ve got a character exploding with charm, wit and wonder. In short, Nettie is larger-than-life adorbs! Nettie’s singular desire is for a mother to love and cuddle having lost hers at birth. Her dreams come true in the shape o...

As a young tween, the closest phenomena I encountered resembling pestilence and epidemics was the odd mouse and locust plague. Both highly irregular, indescribably disturbing occurrences that eventually, mercifully passed. For the generations before me, war assumed similar levels of upheaval and unrest. Imagine though being born into an era of extreme disruption, disease and prolonged uncertainty as your 'new normal' as  recently experienced by many modern-day Gen Alphas. How would you function? What expectations of the future would you possess? Would you want to escape to a better place? This is the unspoken premise of Wendy Orr’s latest middle grade fiction, Honey and The Valley of Horses . ‘Horses’ was my immediate pull card as I’m sure it will be for hundreds of equine enthused fans but the horses in Honey’s tale are much more than decorative incidental whimsy. They inhabit an enchanted valley and hold the key to the family’s survival and subsequent escape. Beset by t...

To throw the reader immediately into the action is a writing pre-requisite we authors often hear or try to adhere to. Doing so creates an immediacy that snags attention in the snap of just a few lines. Accomplished children’s writer of historical fiction, Pamela Rushby, achieves all this and more in each and every one of her novels. The Mud Puddlers is no exception. Oozing with atmosphere, animated characters and a fascinating glimpse into London’s not so distant history, this middle grade fiction beckons kids to believe in the possibility of time slipping. Twelve-year-old Nina is relegated to spend a year in London while her parents head to Antarctica on a research mission. Although she and Aunt Bee are close, Nina succumbs to a state of insubordinate gloom. Nothing Aunt Bee does or says can shake Nina out of her blue funk resentment at being left behind. Not even the adventure of living on her aunt’s converted barge on the river Thames is enough to enthuse. Nor the fact that her a...

Illustrated stories about the profound transformative powers of story telling featuring animals as deputies for emotional guidance and reinforcement are a welcome feature on my bookshelves of late. Recent reviews encompassing this premise include TheBeatryce Prophecy by Kate Di Camillo and Sophie Blackall. Zadie Ma and the Dog Who Chased the Moon by the current Australian Children’s Laureate , Gabrielle Wang is another exemplary example. Zadie is the daughter of an immigrant Chinese Australian family in mid 50s Victoria, a period of history where time was more relaxed but attitudes were still coloured by bigoted, post war thinking and ignorance. Zadie fights hard to maintain her inconspicuous status as school and is conscious of being the dutiful daughter at home, helping Ma in their family run milk bar. But her penultimate talent lies in storytelling. Her brother, Teddy calls it her superpower: the ability to pen a story and then have it come true. Dog-loving Zadie is desperate...

A recalcitrant goat, a gung-ho orphaned boy. An exiled self-doubting monk and a battle-scared girl who would be queen. These are just some of the extraordinary characters that people The Beatryce Prophecy . Bubbling with medieval barbarities at a time when misguided kings and ruthless ambition collide with common decency and humanity, this tale embraces an astonishing number of ideas all deftly woven into one rich reading experience thanks to DiCamillo’s sure hand. Beatryce is found blooded and battered in the stalls of Brother Edik’s monastery. She is feverish and unresponsive. The monastery’s arch nemesis, Answelica, an irascible goat who prefers to bite first and consider later, stands guard. She answers to no one but when Brother Edik announces to the goat that he must tend to Beatryce, a reluctant acquiescence occurs on Answelica’s part. And so then begins an incongruous relationship the deepens with time and necessity. Beatryce is nursed back to health but presents a new dan...

This beautiful illustrated middle grade fiction has all the qualities of a permanent place-keeper on one's bookshelf; kids with whom it resonates won’t be able to surrender it. By the creators who brought us Julia and the Shark, Leila and the Blue Fox , presents a balanced and bespoke narrative based on the real life crossing made by an Artic fox across the Artic circle. Fox, known in human circles as, Miso, is driven by her wild desire, to migrate. She knows not exactly where or how long such a journey will take her. Distance is inconsequential. Survival is her daily modus operandi. To keep on going is her sole motivation. Leila, a young Syrian refugee resides in London with her cousin and aunty. Life is relatively trouble free and wholesome, yet there is an artic circle sized hole within Leila that haunts her; the reason why her mother virtually abandoned her for the last six years. When Leila’s mother sends for Leila to join her in Tromsø, Norway, trepidation pollutes hope...

Neridah McMullin’s latest middle grade fiction is more of a tender-hearted hug than simple story. It is also the perfect example of latching onto an actual historical event and unlocking the story within by utilising those two liberating words: What if? When a steamship is wrecked off the coast of south-west Victoria in the late 1800s, a young parentless mute girl is the first on scene. Instead of waterlogged sailor survivors, she discovers an altogether different kind of flotsam on the beach of her rugged rural home; an Indian rhinoceros, aka, Rhinoceros unicornis . How delightful that this creature’s scientific name reflects the magical qualities of this human animal encounter and ensuing tale. Rhino was part of the exotic cargo of animals bound for the Royal Melbourne Zoo as part of their questionable ‘acquisitions’ projects. Despite sluggish improvements on the captive animal front, the care of these horrendously displaced animals and birds was still woefully misconceived and ...

WendyOrr is a master of fantastical mythical historical middle grade fiction. You’ll forgive that mouthful of adjectives once you immerse yourself into the genesis of Orr’s second Minoan fantasy novel, Swallow’s Dance . There’s a third too! Cuckoo’s Flight released last year. My first journey into the Aegean Bronze Age with Orr and Aissa, Orr’s character from the first book, was through, Dragonfly Song . I was inspired by Orr’s poetic artistry and sublime use of language: part prose and part verse novel, I was utterly swept away by the beauty and tragedy of Aissa’s plight. The use of verse to relay Aissa’s internal dialogue and inner most dread and desires is genius and executed with such finesse I wished it never ended. Dragonfly Song is an adventure story, a tale of daring and hope and a quest for love and acceptance that will have you weeping and cheering. Gripping, artful, and exciting, this novel has broad appeal for both male and female readers aged twelve and above. Swa...

Of the many literary lures to entice kids to page turn into the wee hours of the night, the thrill of a mystery is one of the strongest. Give them great characters with plenty of purpose and pacy plotlines that they can adventure with more than once and well, you might not see said kids for weeks or months. My 34 copies of the Trixie Beldon mystery series are testimony to the power of a good series and Nicki Greenberg’s latest middle grade literary escapades harness that power in the most appealing way. Meshing the past with adventure, Greenberg takes primary readers on an exhilarating tour from London, across the Atlantic and through one of America’s most bedazzling cities. Mystery and a slapdash of mayhem are never too far away. The cast of tween teen characters is led by robustly intelligent 13-year-old Pepper Stark whose heart tugging family backstory is neatly woven through each book. The extravagances in Pepper’s life are extreme and jaw dropping yet she exudes a down-to-eart...