The Ghost Horse of Snowy River

The Ghost Horse of Snowy River by Stef Gemmill. Wombat Books/Rhiza Press 2026. MG Paperback RRP $18.99. ISBN 9781761113543.

Reviewed by Debra Williams

A year has passed since 12-year-old Georgie Stone had a serious horse-riding accident. Georgie lost three things: an eye, her horse and her country life. All she has left is a horse braid bracelet to remind her of her lost brumby, Magic. 

It’s taken a long time for recovery, and Georgie is not out of the woods. Now that she's back at the cattle station, she tries to overcome her fear of riding and prepare for the two-week cattle muster. There’s a herd of wild brumbies led by the Ghost Horse, being hunted by a local horsewhipper, Goldburn, and Georgie is worried about their safety and future. As the Ghost Horse begins to follow Georgie on the muster, the stallion is in extreme danger. Georgie wonders whether the grey stallion is her old horse, Magic, and seeks a way to prove it before Goldburn captures him.

 

Georgie has a new horse to ride, the mare Faith. The two bond, but there is an ache in Georgie’s heart for Magic. She has never been on a muster before, and some reckless but well-intentioned decisions have proven dangerous.

 

Now she searches online to match DNA from Magic to the Ghost Horse, so-called because of its colour.  Using the horse braid bracelet and a chunk of the Ghost Horse’s mane, plus her own saved money, she sends the samples away. Will they match? And, even if they do, Georgie needs Magic’s original ownership papers to prove the horse is hers.

 

This is an exciting edge-of-the-seat MG adventure story, fraught with much worry and action. There is a strained relationship among Georgie’s divorced parents, her country-dwelling father, and her grandmother. She has a typical sibling-on-again, off-again relationship with her older brother, Finn. Learning to ride again, with the loss of one eye, is a tenuous and difficult step in Georgie’s life. But she shows great inner strength and fights tooth and nail to help save the brumbies and regain her former stallion.

 

A picture book author, this is Stef Gemmill’s first Middle-Grade work. A wonderful story about a girl and her love of horses; recommended for readers ages 8-12.

Toy Mountain

Toy Mountain by Stef Gemmill, illustrated by Katharine Hall (EK Books) RRP HB RRP $24.99 ISBN 9781925820966

Reviewed by Kylie Buckley
 
Sam is sick of his old hand-me-down wooden toys and longs to have fancy new toys to play with. When Mum shares the news that the local factory requires a ‘toy tester’ he leaps at the opportunity. Sam is overjoyed when his days are filled with deliveries of new toys… ones with knobs that pop, levers that ping and horns that honk. He loved all the toys until, one by one, they went ‘plonk’. Sam soon becomes overwhelmed when the deliveries keep coming and the pile of broken toys keep accumulating, beyond what he can handle. 

Toy Mountain is an entertaining picture book highly recommended for readers aged 4 years and older. Its themes, including consumerism, sustainability and environmental impact, are especially relevant in today’s society and in the current lead-up to Christmas. The cartoon illustrations have been created using a vibrant colour palette and depict plenty of action. The text contains a myriad of verbs and onomatopoeia, producing a lively narrative which will appeal to a young audience.

 

  

A Home for Luna

A Home for Luna has won the Children's Category of the International Rubery Book Awards. The Rubery Prize is a prestigious international book award seeking the best books by indie writers, self-published authors and books published by independent presses, judged by reputable judges.

https://www.ruberybookaward.com/ 

A Home for Luna - written by Stef Gemmill, illustrated by Mel Armstrong, published by New Frontier Publishing

This is everything a picture-book should be. The story is lovely – Luna, a black and white cat, is far from home, washed ashore in a remote place where eventually she’s befriended by a colony of penguins, including Tiny and Yellow-Eye. When a man passing by in a boat attempts to rescue her, Luna doesn’t want to leave, and she and her new friends join forces to drive him away. The illustrations are delightful, particularly the final picture where Luna is nestled at the feet of Tiny and Yellow-Eye like a penguin chick.
The story has universal themes that even young children will be able to recognise. The idea of ‘home’ and feeling safe and having friends are all simple concepts for children to understand, because they’re central to their own lives. For this very reason, however, they do feature a great deal in picture-books, and it takes no little skill to come up with something as original and appealing as this story.  

A Home for Luna

A Home for Luna by Stef Gemmill, illustrated by Mel Armstrong (New Frontier) HB RRP $24.99 ISBN 9781925594843

Reviewed by Dianne Bates

Luna is a black and white cat who washes up on a strange shore, having arrived in a wooden box one moonlit night. She dreams of the seaside home she had long ago but is alone until she meets a flock of penguins which are gobbling sardines. She is hungry but has no food until a tiny bird kindly feeds her a shellfish. From then on Luna catches fish with her new friends. When a boat arrives and Luna is grabbed by a fisherman, the penguins protect her while she hisses and manages to break free. Finally, the lonely cat has found a happy new home.

This is a sweet and simple story about friendship with birds adopting a lost cat. It is appropriately illustrated in sea green and blue colours in contrast to the white and orange of the penguins. The illustrator uses an interesting technique of white on black and black on white for the sea rushing onto the shore on the fly pages. Something children will have fun with is finding a tiny crab in a shell that appears on most pages. This book will be enjoyed by children aged 4 to 7 years.

Achievement

Stef Gemmill has signed another picture book contract with New Frontier Publishing.  In My Dreams is confirmed for release in April 2020 and will be illustrated by the talented German artist Tanja Stephani.

Stef has also announced the August release of A Home for Luna, a picture book about finding family in an unexpected place and illustrated by  Mel Armstrong.

https://www.stefgemmill.com/