Star Girl: Books 13 and 16

Star Girl – Book 13 Spilling Secrets and Book 16 Everything to Lose by Louise Park (MacMillan Education)
PB RRP $9.99 each
ISBN: 978 1 4202 9382 1 (Book 13) and 978 1 4202 9385 2 (Book 10)
Reviewed by Wendy McLean

Year Three at the SEAS (Space Education and Action School) Space Agent Program and Adelaide Banks has made it to agent-in-training! Addie, aka Space Girl, has graduated from Space Cadet and Captain, and has now made it into the last year at SEAS Space Agent Program. Students must complete a number of dangerous and important missions to outer space planets that need help, and need to earn more than 100 mission points in total to earn the rank of Space Agent.

But nothing is easy in the mission to become a Space Agent. In Book 13, Space Agent Star Girl is called away from her preparations for the Agents’ Masquerade Ball by an urgent mission text message on her Spaceberry. The Planet Catlabrator is turning into muddy sludge and the alien creatures keep getting bogged! Star Girl and her fellow agents-in-training, Space Agents Supernova 1 and Asteroid, must save the puppy-like aliens with the tiger faces (known as catralabs) from drowning. Space Agents Star Girl and Supernova 1 are focused on the task at hand but is Space Agent Asteroid? After discovering a certain Space Agent received an invitation to the Agents’ Masquerade Ball from the handsome Space Surfer, she is more focused on thwarting Star Girl’s chances of attending the ball than saving the catralabs. Whether Star Girl can save the catralabs, overcome the evil actions of Asteroid and still make it to the ball is uncertain until the final pages of the action-packed Star Girl 13 Spilling Secrets.

In Book 16, it is graduation week but Space Agent Star Girl hasn’t flown a mission since her harrowing trip to Planet Oceanella and still does not have enough mission points to graduate with her best friends. But when Space Agents Comet XS, Neuron Star and Shooting Star are called to an important mission to the Planet Molluscara, they have more on their mind than just rescuing the alien shelluscas. With the help of her very best friends, Star Girl braves one last mission in an attempt to not only rescue the shelluscas from deadly fire and smoke but to earn the vital mission points necessary for graduation.

The Star Girl series is an exciting and empowering series which touches on skills necessary to succeed in any mission (real life or fantasy!): trust, quick thinking and the ability to work as team. The action-packed books combine the trials and tribulations of everyday life in a boarding school with the dangerous and action-packed adventures of the best space fantasy and will appeal to girls aged 7-10.  Readers can also check out the Star Girl website: http://www.stargirluniverse.com/.

365 Awesome Aussie Jokes

365 Awesome Aussie Jokes (various contributors, illustrated by Louise O'Shea (Scholastic Australia)
PB RRP $9.99
ISBN 978-1-74169-6103
Reviewed by Vicki Stanton
http://www.buzzwordsmagazine.com/

Everyone loves a joke book and everyone will love this one with jokes suitable for all ages. There are knock, knock jokes; puns and riddles:

How does a snake hurry?

It gets a wriggle on.

and

What has four wheels and flies?

A garbage truck.

There is a joke for everyday of the year; great for kids to look up the joke for their birthday. Celebrity contributors include Australian cricketer Mitchell Johnson and actress Kate Ritchie. Black-and-white cartoonish illustrations add to the feel good vibe of the book.

But not only will you feel good from having a laugh, you will also feel good that all the royalties from sales of 365 Awesome Aussie Jokes will be donated by Scholastic to Camp Quality for their work in helping children and their families living with cancer through their recreational, educational and financial programs.

You can also send in your own Aussie joke for consideration for next year's joke book. Submit to www.campquality.org.au/yourjoke