What would you wish for?

Join the YKNR Wish Parade and under-celebrate with us

Jul 04, 2023

As a bunch of under-celebrators, the YKNR Team is bracing itself for the next four weeks when we are launching not one, not two, not even three but FOUR books between us.

Covers for Teacher, Teacher (edited by Megan Daley), The Wish Sisters: The Running Wish and The Pet Wish by Allison Rushby, and The First Summer of Callie McGee by A. L. Tait

Two new additions to The Wish Sisters junior fiction series by Allison Rushby (ill. by Karen Blair) are out now!

Find out more about The Running Wish and The Pet Wish.

Teacher, Teacher, an anthology edited by Megan Daley, is out on 25 July 2023.

You can find out more and pre-order here. (Also, see more from Megan, below.)

The First Summer of Callie McGee by A. L. Tait, hits bookshops on 1 August 2023.

You can find out more and pre-order here.

In an ideal world, we’d spread these things out, but this is the real world and so we’re banding together to weather the storm.

We each have heavy schedules to spread the word about our books, stretching out right until the end of term three (or Book Term as Megan likes to call it), so keep an eye on the Facebook group for updates. We would absolutely love to see you at an event!

But Allison R’s new Wish Sisters books are the first out of the gates, and to send them on their way, we’ve decided to create a Wish Parade. (It’s a new thing, so stick with us.)

Be part of the parade by answering this question

If we gave you one wish, right now, what would you wish for?

Waffle, waffle, waffle… Team YKNR (l-r) Allison Rushby, Megan Daley, Allison Tait

Hear this superpower in full flow on the podcast!

YKNR podcast

HELLO FROM ALLISON RUSHBY

The award-winning, bestselling author of many, many books for children and adults, Allison Rushby’s novels are firm favourites in the Your Kid’s Next Read community. Her latest illustrated junior fiction series, The Wish Sisters, is fast gaining fans. More about Allison R here.

Oof. I’m just back from a lovely five nights in the Granite Belt and Scenic Rim, where I ate my bodyweight in cheese and washed it down with way too much wine while I watched people helicopter in and out of our hotel.

It’s back to reality here with grocery shopping, clothes washing and, oh yes, a huge edit to tackle.

What I really want to discuss, though, is my thread of the month from the YKNR group, because I’ve been saving it up! This was a discussion that took on a life of its own, morphing into a special post where you could all brag about how many library cards you own, because that’s the kind of flexing we’re about here at YKNR!

THREAD OF THE MONTH

The world of adminning Facebook groups can be a strange one. I have a couple friends who admin extremely different sorts of groups.

One of them admins for a group for people looking to have a specific type of surgery. Another admins for a local crime group (er, so that people can report crimes that have happened in the local area, not so they can actually commit crime… 😅).

For these friends, adminning can often be an absolute nightmare. But things are different here at YKNR…

YKNR members are often telling us that YKNR is “the nicest group on the Internet”. And now I have proof that this is true!

You see, to help out admins, Facebook has a number of helpful suggestion tab things (you can tell I’m a pro at this, can’t you?!). The helpful suggestion tab things assist you in moderating the group and one of them is a “possible conflict in comments” tab.

It’s usually set off when there are a number of comments made quite quickly on a post, one after the other, which could suggest an argument. But here at YKNR, it often just flags members getting very excited about a book from their childhoods, or over a long-awaited book being given a release date.

Or, as it turns out, library cards…

Join the YKNR community

HELLO FROM MEGAN DALEY

Megan is an award-winning teacher-librarian working in Brisbane, the author of Raising Readers: How to nurture a child’s love of books, and co-host of the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast. She is also a sought after public speaker, literary judge, creator of the popular website Children's Books Daily and the 2023 curator for Word Play for Brisbane Writers Festival. More about Megan here.

Gosh it's been a busy month! Does anyone else feel like the year is flying? I actually cannot believe it’s July – which for us means rather a number of kid and family birthdays and birthday cake baking.

Fortunately, I very much enjoy baking cakes. There is something so soothing about following instructions, measuring ingredients, smelling sweet smells (and licking sweet batter spoons) and watching a cake rise.

It's also an exciting month because 'Teacher, Teacher' is out later this month and I'm really proud of this collection I have edited. 'Teacher, Teacher' is an anthology of stories from thirty contributors including Tony Birch, Jessie Tu, Sam Drummond, Rick Morton, Eliza Hull and many more, showcasing some of the brilliant educators who have nurtured, inspired, championed or created change – in a student or a whole community. These are entertaining, engaging and authentic accounts that span both the darkness and the light of the educational journey, coming together as an insightful, moving and impassioned whole.

Pre-order 'Teacher, Teacher'

MEGAN’S BOOKMARK REVIEWS

Each month, I share full reviews of two outstanding books that have crossed my desk. Bookmark these for your young readers.

Bidhi Galing by Anita Heiss, Ill. by Samantha Campbell

Bidhi Galing (Big Rain) celebrates the Wiradyuri heroes of the Great Flood of Gundagai in 1852, told through the eyes of a young girl who is rescued from the raging floodwaters by her father.

Wagadhaany grew up near the Marrambidya Bila. She loved dancing in the rain and listening to her father, Yarri, tell her stories about life on Wiradyuri country. When white people started building on the floodplains, Yarri was worried. He knew the power of the bila and tried to warn the strangers, but they would not listen. Years later, the big rains came ...

This is the story of the Great Flood of Gundagai in 1852 and the Wiradyuri heroes, Yarri and Jacky Jacky, who paddled bark canoes through raging floodwaters, risking their lives to save countless others.

The author’s note has a moving account from Anita of her experience of being home on country, reflecting on the life her ancestors led in and around Wagga Wagga and feeling compelled to share the stories of this area. Bidhi Galing is a beautiful picture book for a middle to upper primary audience full of Wiradyuri culture, knowledge and language. Perfect for a home or school library and check out all her other titles - adults, children's and YA.

We Could be Something by Will Kostakis

Part coming-out story. Part falling-in-love story. Part falling-apart story.

Harvey's dads are splitting up. It's been on the cards for a while, but it's still sudden. Woken-by-his-father-to-catch-a-red-eye sudden. Now he's restarting his life in a new city, living above a cafe with the extended Greek family he barely knows.

Sotiris is a rising star. At seventeen, he's already achieved his dream of publishing a novel. When his career falters, a cute, wise-cracking bookseller named Jem upends his world.

Harvey and Sotiris's stories converge on the same street in Darlinghurst, in this beautifully heartfelt novel about how our dreams shape us, and what they cost us.

'We Could Be Something' is a heartfelt novel full of warm, witty and authentic characters exploring family, culture, love and identity. Kostakis's writing is moving, clever, and super witty, striking the perfect balance between humour and emotional depth.

The book offers a compelling and refreshingly original narrative that will resonate with readers aged 14-17 and beyond.

HELLO FROM ALLISON TAIT

Writing as A. L. Tait, Allison is the internationally published, bestselling author of eight novels for middle-grade readers across three series: The Mapmaker Chronicles, The Ateban Cipher and the Maven & Reeve Mysteries. She is an in-demand speaker for author visits and literary festivals, a writing teacher for kids and adults, co-host of the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast and former co-host of the So You Want To Be A Writer podcast. More about Allison here.

I’m thinking about places at the moment. Specifically, about how we can take the things we know, love and feel about special places and turn them into stories.

While it sounds a bit wafty, it’s all part of creating a new author talk/workshop for The First Summer of Callie McGee. The book was inspired by my love of classic kid’s mystery stories and this place:

It’s a real place (Gerroa, NSW), which becomes the fictional seaside village of Sawyer’s Point for my story. Gerroa locals might be surprised to discover a surf club has materialised on their streets, but they’ll recognise the long stretch of beach, and the rock pools on the other side of the headland.

My new author talk will encourage kids to think about the places they know and find the stories inside them. In the meantime, you can see the author author talks and workshops I do for kids by clicking the button

A. L. Tait author talks

SURVEY RESULTS

We had such a great response to June’s YKNR survey and loved finding out more about you! We’ll be using the survey results to bring you more of what you love about YKNR.

Two statistics in particular brought us so much joy:

•95% of respondents have read, borrowed or bought books based on recommendations from the YKNR community

•91% of respondents have discovered a new author thanks to Your Kid’s Next Read!

We founded this group six years ago to help spread the word about great kid’s books and to help parents to keep kids reading. As we approach 30,000 members in our Facebook group, we’re thrilled to see the ripple effect of that idea. If you’d asked us six years ago what we wished for YKNR, it’s this – so our addition to the Wish Parade is a wish that’s coming true!

ICYMI

Each month, our paid subscribers receive at least one bonus post in their inboxes, as well as access to our archives. Recent posts include:

30 Holiday Reading Ideas (a printable ‘bingo’ sheet created by Megan Daley)

Weeding Your Library Collection (Megan’s step-by-step guide to managing your school library collection)

A Story Is Like A Jigsaw Puzzle (5 tips for young writers from Allison Rushby)

10 tips for reaching reluctant readers (and why it’s worth persisting)

Educators who are paid subscribers have our permission to reproduce our content for school purposes.

We’re currently offering a FREE seven-day trial so you can take a peek at the paid content on offer. Click on any link above to find out more.

JULY BOOKMAIL WINNER

Each month, we’re giving away a prize pack consisting of some of the brilliant bookmail sent to us for the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast. One winner* is chosen from our full subscriber list by random draw and announced here!

There are TEN books in the July prize pack.

The JULY bookmail giveaway winner is …

Kate Jepsen

Congrats! We’ll be in touch by email.

*Australian mailing addresses only. Prize consists of one copy of each book pictured, sent as a pack to the winner by Australia Post. Winner will be contacted by email and prize must be claimed within 14 days or a redraw will take place. You must be subscribed to the YKNR newsletter by midnight (AEDST) the night before publication each month to be eligible to win. No correspondence will be entered into.