Dim's Write Stuff

Raze is a young teen with a pedigree heritage. His dad is a feared mafia boss and convicted felon. His older brother is keen to pursue an unlawful way of life; it pays tremendous dividends in the form of big booties after all. Being the son of such notoriety does not come without some major conflicts. For Raze, aka Rey Tanic, life is a continuous violent clash between his criminal family's expectations of him and his desire to break free from them and live a life less outlawed. An existence more normal and honest are Raze's simple dreams. He tries his determined best to keep his head down at school and is fortunate to have mates like Ids and Candy on his team. They're a motley crew glued together by spray paint and an unspoken respect for each other. Each is battling their own struggle against an identity title they'd rather not have, except maybe Ids who is the brilliant cool comical chum throughout. One title they do revere is MCT - their graffiti tag. Despite th...

Maree Coote's picture books are sublime works of art; dramatic, visually arresting, evocative. Published by Melbourne Style Books, they are expressions of history, culture, art and design. Perfect conduits for conveying accounts and incidents in non-fictional settings in ways young children can enthuse over and understand. When a tiny new born baby disappeared one fateful evening some 40 years ago, an entire nation was instantly polarised. Questions clotted in every lounge room, staff room and playground, quickly congealing into unsubstantiated opinions. Like many, I remember the exact moment I first heard the awful news report on the family television. It's a recollection indelibly inscribed on my memory. And yes, even in our humble household, assumptions were immediately made. You either believed a mother murdered her baby or a dingo committed a crime against nature. Four decades on, several court hearings and a life time of attrition later, this simple picture book ...

The story pages of The Happiness Box are encased in slouch-hat-felt-beige, giving nothing away until you open this picture book and chance inside where you'll discover a beautiful story within a story. The Happiness Box was created in the middle of World War II, in the throat of a torrid jungle strangled by war. For Sergeant David 'Griff' Griffins, Changi Prison on the east coast of Singapore was home. He and the other prisoners of war including women and children endured the rigors of imprisonment, disease and starvation for years, each fearful of being hauled off into the jungle to work for the Japanese as slaves building railways and bridges . To pass the time and maintain morale, Griff ran literary competitions and penned theatrical productions which the prisoners performed, desperate to preserve normality and boost spirits. He encouraged reading among his men but his thoughts always returned to the children cooped up in Changi prison  who had no toys or book...

This graphic junior novel is a tactile and visual pleasure. Kids will hoot with pleasure at the antics of our seriously flawed, emotionally fragile main character, Vognox and his ever faithful fearless side kick, Drax, the Arctic fox. Despite his Viking heritage and rocking Viking helmet, Vognox has a strong aversion for adventure. He detests it and wants to avoid it at all costs because adventure makes you sick in the tummy with fear and dread and could get you killed! He'd much rather stay home for tea and retire early to bed. Despite Drax's diminutive size, he is the cleverest fox in all of Midgard and devotes his life to bailing Vognox out of tricky situations. Life wouldn't be so tricky if it wasn't for Awful Awfa, the surreptitious hand who repeatedly causes mayhem and madness by sketching Vognox and Drax in increasingly desperate situations as they pursue the Awfa's missing pencil. Without it, they may cease to exist. And if that happens, there'll...

They've been around for a while, jigsaw puzzles that is, since the 17th Century in fact. I reckon there is nothing more frustrating and fun, challenging and rewarding nor consuming and relaxing as completing a humble puzzle. It's oddly addictive; you can't just fit one piece and walk away to feed the cat. I don't have a cat but if I did, it would be starving by now because like thousands of others around the world at the moment, we are 'puzzle people'. There's something intensely therapeutic about persisting with such a simple yet complex situation. It's an outcome we should be able to control (unless your cat eats a piece) and that gives one a sense of tenacious purpose; to finish it, for me at least. For others it might be the absolute joy of recreating something so utterly pretty and spectacular. Perhaps that's why so many confined to their homes right now are dragging out old favourites and spending more money than they would on an oversea...

The thing that screams most impressively in this tale about the real Turia Pitt , is her raw honesty and dogged determination, a stubbornness to not just never give in but to always push further. True grit is often bandied about as a commodity easily sourced from the self-help section of our bookshops, but this account of someone who has literally been to hell and back, presents life in all its glory, normality and of course horror with unashamed frankness. Having survived the awful fire event in 2011 whilst competing in an outback marathon, Pitt allows the reader to relive her fear, pain and frustrations, before, immediately after being engulfed by flames and then beyond, down the long arduous road of recovery. Along the way she bears more and more layers of herself, some relating to the 'old Turia', others glimpses of the new improved Turia. Improved because as she asserts, if she had not experienced such trauma, her life and future convictions may not have evolved as...

For practically every single one of us, this Easter will be some sort of departure from the norm. We are normally on the road somewhere, camping in the Kombi with the pooches - together. Or else we'd be spending long lazy days on the bank of a river fishing with mates - together. Often this special weekend is spent hosting a colossal barbie with family - together. It's a time for rebirth and celebration. This year, of course, will be slightly different. Crazy as it sounds, my little family pod are not entirely sure what to do with themselves or each other away from the usual external stimuli. I suspect many others are experiencing this odd 'What now?' sensation on some level, too. One thing is for certain, it's a fantastic time to reconnect, reinvigorate old family fun rituals, invent new ones and...drag out the camping games for lounge room use. Before you get suckered into a five hour Monopoly marathon though, why not continue to explore the plethora of ...