My Brother

My Brother by Dee Huxley with Oliver and Tiffany Huxley (Working Title Press) HB RRP $24.99

ISBN 9781921504853
Reviewed by Vicki Thornton

My Brother is a beautiful story in so many ways. The text is simple. A creature is searching for his lost brother: he searches the places he used to go, the lovely places and the scary places. He searches and searches but can’t find him. Only when exhaustion overtakes him and he sleeps does he wake to find his brother is not lost, but with him everywhere.

The illustrations are what make this story so ethereal and surreal. They are black and white as the creature hunts, and when he realises that his brother is always with him does colour become a major impact.

There is so much detail in these illustrations, from the beginning, where two coats and hats and sets of gumboots silently wait, to the discovery of nursery rhyme characters in later pages. The cow jumping over the moon, the mouse running up the clock, the owl and the pussycat in their boat (one assumes pea green).  A gentle touch with both text and illustration leads the reader on a journey of loss from a sibling’s perspective.

This warm and gentle book looks at grief and loss. Although aimed at children of middle primary school age who have lost a sibling, I think this book would be suitable for younger primary age children as well, especially as it gives the option for parents for further discussions.  Highly recommended. 

Note that Dee Huxley has worked as a freelance illustrator, graphic designer and author and has illustrated many picture books for children. She has been shortlisted twice for the Children’s Book Council Picture Book of the Year Award.

Milo: A Moving Story

Milo: A Moving Story written & illustrated by Tohby Riddle (Allen & Unwin) HB RRP $29.99 ISBN 9781760111632

Reviewed by Dianne Bates

‘Milo led an ordinary life. He lived in a solid kennel in an okay part of town and had few complaints.’ Thus begins this new picture book by well-loved Australian book creator, Tohby Riddle. Milo is an anthromorphised dog with friends and a job as a messenger which takes him across town.

One night Milo has a dream which leaves him unsettled and gruff with his poet friend Snombo. That day a ‘largish rabble of moths fluttered by’ followed by other odd things. When Milo awakens the next day, he discovers his kennel has moved and is now perched on a ledge of a skyscraper. Enter a bird named Carlos…

This is an odd book which has a kind of surreal feel about it. It ends strangely, too, with this reviewer not sure what the ending means. Is this a story about the power of dreams, about the effect of dreams and of change or the value of strangers and of friendship? Perhaps it is all of these things. What is for sure is that this book captures one’s attention.

The illustrations, which use darkish tones throughout, are eye-catching and worth studying from the fly pages where Milo is pursued by this dog friends to those pages where Riddle incorporates photos, such as of ancient buildings. The views from the top of the skyscraper of the city below are excellent! It would seem that the images are created by computer and yet they seem natural and enchanting.

Towards the end of the book, Milo, back in his old home territory, thinks ‘Isn’t life a mystery?’ Just like this book!

In the Skin of a Monster

In the Skin of a Monster by Kathryn Barker (Allen & Unwin 2015)
PB RRP $17.99
ISBN: 9781760111717

Reviewed by Jade Harmer

We meet seventeen-year-old Alice in the remote outback Australian town of Collector. Three years have passed since her identical twin sister inexplicably took a gun to school and killed seven fellow students, and Alice is still trying to make sense of it all and distinguish herself from the murderer whose face she shares in the eyes of a broken town.

We meet Lux in the guise of a seventeen-year-old boy in a dangerous, distorted version of Collector, built on surreal dreamscapes and nightmares riddled with imagined monsters such as the girl in the brown school dress.

Events quickly takes a fantastical turn as Alice becomes trapped in Lux’s world, and even there, she finds herself mistaken for the monster that plagues her.

In the Skin of a Monster questions perception and reality in what is an original and intriguing debut novel from Kathryn Barker which I found to be a challenging read.

Alternating between the perspectives of Alice and Lux, a story emerges with the potential to confuse a reader in much the same way that Barker’s characters are confused by their circumstances.

I found myself questioning whether Alice ever had a twin, or if in fact she was the very monster she feared, living in a delusional, drug-addled state.

By the novel’s conclusion, some readers may be frustrated to find that the answers Alice seeks to find are by no means tied up in a nice, neat bow, but as she attempts to return to her life in the real Collector, there is a sense that she and her town, real and imagined, can begin to heal.

This book is suitable for a young adult and adult readership.