Dim's Write Stuff

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...

The invisible fabric of friendship can hide many warps and weaves. What may at first appear beautiful and enduring, can quickly unravel when subjected to unprecedented change. All The Best Liars is contemporary psychological thriller that tests the strength of such a fabric between childhood besties, Syd, Rain and Brie with devastating results. Inseparable at the age of nine years old, the trio share a comradery that shields them from the harsh relentless glare of poverty under an even more ruthless Californian desert climate. They all reside in a cul de sac high in a mountainous suburb whose main feature is desolate nothingness. But the girls play and exist with scant regard for the more affluent communities downhill from them, that is until the day Brie and her widowed belligerent father leave for richer prospects. This turn of change ignites a loathing in Rain towards Brie, an abject rejection of her perceived pseudo existence and popular-girl clique mentally, simultaneously push...

Fans of Tristan Bancks’ pacy action-orientated middle grade novels will be lunging for his latest serving of thrills and spills, Cop & Robber . The incongruous grouping of nouns as a title was enough to whet my appetite but the opening paragraph literally haunted me for days in a ‘this feels so real, must keep reading’ kinda way. Bancks is master at creating authentic suspense with a mere sprinkling of words, teasing the reader in like an experienced fly fisherman. And chapter one certainly hooks. Nash witnesses his dad, commit a robbery from the local Broken Ridge service station. It’s not the smoothest of criminal operations and yields very little if you don’t count the mounting dread and colossal sense of shame that chokes Nash. He knows his dad, Lyle is a decent sort of bloke deep down, the type who models himself on historic bushrangers with a will to stand up for the little guy. Dad is an ex-boxing champ with no other bankable skills other than an urge to rob banks to make ...

At a time when I was in deep exchange with fellow creatives including the adroit children’s literature author, Professor Emeritus Gary Crew about whether or not there was or should be more divergence (convergence) of creative styles and elements across Kids’ Lit genres, this book came along. We Were Wolves is not the first illustrated fiction for older readers to ever grace our children’s bookshelves; many well-known middle grade novel series feature drawings, often in subsequent editions, that increase reach and re-ignite story interest. It is however a telling example of the growing shifts to provide more heavily illustrated books for older readers, namely young adults. And I couldn’t be more pleased. This hardcover edition by accomplished illustrator, Jason Cockcroft, is his first novel and it’s a ripper. Few of the 207 odd pages are left unmarked by Cockcroft’s exquisite greyscale illustrations, some claiming entire pages, others creating intimate border details that enhance n...

This is a curiously compelling thriller that sets your mind whirling with speculation. After an initial period of accustomization of where and why (and wrapping my head around a slew of acronyms I thought I had to remember), this YA thriller settled into a convincing mystery of deceit and apprehension. Sixteen-year-old Eila is shortlisted to be the face of a global marketing campaign for a new virtual reality skinsuit, the kind never before seen in her futuristic world of VR and AR commonality. These skinsuits have the ability to adhere to their wearers' thoughts and emotions with action, surpassing conventional VR 'normality'. In short, they are uber high tech units. K H Canobi has crafted an action imbued tale of suspenseful turmoil that crackles with tension and doubt. Once we are lured into Eila's world, one that is eerily easy to accept as our own; as it might be just a few years from now, we are swept along with her in a confusion of mind altering, siniste...

Admittedly, I'm a little late getting around to this one and although a staunch fan of Marsden, if I had read Tomorrow, When The War Began two decades earlier, the plausibility and impact no doubt would have been far more intense. Despite that, this remains a telling story of tenacity, teen relationships and ingenuity - the kind kids had before they plugged themselves into mobile phones. Using one's wits under pressure is never a straightforward thing. Survival text books may help but chuck in generous dollops of distress, an alarming lack of adult assistance, huge clods of uncertainty, a ridiculous amount of gun-wielding marksmen and of course no app to advise you what to do or how to think and you've got yourself a situation a lot out of the normal and way out of control. A handful of Wirrawee's rural youth led by Ellie return from a secluded weekend camping trip to find their world upturned, their town invaded and their families held captive by an unknown for...

Tristan Bancks signed my copy of Detention with a note hoping it kept me turning pages . This book lived up to that promise and then some. Packed with page-turning tension and relentless drama, this is one middle grade novel that may cause a few kids to miss their dinner call. Yet despite the raw gritty urgency that suffuses nearly every page and the elevated sense of dread and desperation that keeps your heart in top gear, the pace is never too manic nor too hectic to enjoy the energising mix of edgy excitement and sincere emotion Bancks does so well. Dan is an inner suburban boy living on the outer perimeters of life. He’s classified as trailer park trash because of his permanent residence at the social-economically deprived Midgenba caravan park. It’s a title that comes with an ineradicable smear of hopeless. Deep down though, Dan’s a good kid, a caring kid. The type of kid who’ll risk his own face to save a vicious dying dog, which he does one day after finding Rosco tied ...