some books belong on coffee tables in homes with or without children
Food waste is becoming a global concern. Economists, environmentalists and human rights advocates are all on the same page: we have to stop wasting, start sharing, and get fresh food to people who need it. They’re the sort of goals everyone can get behind.
Ages 3 - Grown Ups
Emma is a young girl who lives in an old crooked house, but she doesn’t mind because it’s near the ocean, and that is her favourite place to be. The magic and mystery of the ocean solidifies one foggy day when Emma discovers a beached baby whale.
ages 1 to 8 years
Spring is in full bloom in Tasmania, it’s the most divine season. Lush green from all the rain, vibrant splashes of colour from the blossoms and spring blooms (daffodils everywhere!) and all that bright sunshine! There’s a whole mass of colours you forget exist in the long cold winter.
All the Colours I See is the perfect book to compliment our spring colour fever. It’s a beautiful die-cut colours primer that explores the different hues in the world around us.
ages 2 to 8 years
Before and after photos are something of a modern obsession—weight loss, home renovations, teeth, hair, even cars (think Pimp My Ride)! We just seem to love looking at change.
My Pictures After The Storm feeds that innate human fascination in a way that is laugh out loud funny. It's fundamentally cheerful and offers such a clever and witty look at life. This is a book that's full of humour, bursting with life and colour, and terrific for thinking about change
ages 6 years to adult
Is there a more universal and constant battle for western parents than the fight to limit technology? We so want all the benefits of technological immersion but also feel instinctively that lives need a bit of analogue in them too. Labyrinth is like a book bridge—it crosses the chasm between story and interactive play...
Do you do Valentine’s Day? It’s not huge in Australia relative to say, America, but it's getting bigger every year. We’re pretty hit-and-miss at our house, but one year I nailed it: I left a copy of I Love Kissing You on Roger’s pillow.
This is a sweet and simple book about enduring, grown-up love.
A beautiful look at some fascinating animals. Full of detail and fascinating facts, this is a book to mesmerise young animal lovers. Gorgeous & interesting enough for the coffee table too.
ages 2 years to grownup
A Treasury for every home—absorbing art coupled with significant prose woven around funny, engaging, shocking and/or inspiring stories. Beautifully produced, it's a work of art that's great fun to read aloud.
ages 2 years to adult
ages 2 years to adult (a beautiful gift or coffee table book)
What does your home have lots of? Cars, cheese, Atlantic puffins? Lots beautifully illustrates cities and regions around the world, showing what they have lots of.
A wonderful coffee table book; captivating art and words with meaning for adults at least as much as for children. 20 illustrators bring their very best work and perfectly compliment 20 inspiring quotes.
ages early childhood and upwards
Set in Paris, France. A wonderful, inspirational book that speaks of the little-known history of Muslim heroes in Paris during World War II and their rescues of Jews, Resistance fighters, Allied pilots, and prisoners of war.
ages 10 to grown-up
A stunning collaboration of words and art, this is an affirmation of the value of wonderful hours spent immersed in a book. Magical art work reminds us of the joys of opening yet another book and beginning a new adventure.
ages early childhood to grown-up
Australia is a wildly diverse country with so very much to marvel at and to love - here is a stunning and beautifully crafted reminder of why so many of us 'love a sunburnt country'.
all ages / coffee table, s.o.s.e.
ages 8 years and up
This is a truly remarkable book – the sort that makes you gasp and know that it needs to be in your house, on your table and hopefully in the hearts of your family. It’s a refugee story and perhaps a Christmas fable - there’s a mother and a baby, a father and a donkey.
I bought this picture book just for me, without hesitation. It's full of sentiment but not sentimental and the words are profoundly simple. The illustrations are not too shabby either. (Read that as 'they're stunning!')
ages toddler to grown-up
ages 4 to 12 years
I confess that I'm not a big fan of the whole hero culture that we seem to have going. Too often the ‘heroes’ aren’t heroic and are anything but role model material. But Peaceful Heroes is a collection of super-short biographies of people who have impacted the world positively and peacefully.
ages about 8 to grownup
The dreadful realities of history include events and times like the Cultural Revolution in China. Times that test the limits of our imaginations and our resolve. The Red Piano is a beautifully told story that takes us into the life of a young girl living through the Cultural Revolution.
It’s an Australian childhood ritual to pore over the latest Graeme Base book. This one could well be my favourite. There’s a really strong but attainable environment message running through it, with a boy seeing ‘eye to eye’ with a whole range of animals in an array of habitats and circumstances.
ages birth to 8 + grownup
Have you seen this remarkable—though gruelling—webpage? It’s called Where the children sleep and it shows a series of images of sleeping children who have been displaced by the war in Syria. There are 22 images, each with a few words about the child's circumstances.
[ ... ]
For a less gruelling but still thought-provoking look at the wildly disparate sleeping places of children around the world we’d recommend Where Children Sleep. (The book and the web page are unrelated even though they have similar names.) I’ve seen many a child and adult sit and pore over the pages of this breathtaking book.
From cover to cover, If... is an enjoyable and fresh look at what might be. Each page presents a simple yet complex thought and a positively enthralling illustration to match. The cover picture is of fish masquerading as the leaves of a tree and the book continues in the same vein
ages 2 years to grownup
This is such a funny book. Liz Climo draws amazingly appealing animals in all sorts of situations - but her talent extends way beyond the drawings. How she gets the humanity into them I don't know, every situation is completely relatable to ourselves or to someone we know. I've had the book sitting on our coffee table for a month or so now and it brings giggles from everyone who picks it up.
kids to teens to adults! (a brilliant gift)
ages 2 to 8 years
Home as any place, as a reflection of who we are, as something that binds us to our community, as something unique and special—all of this is reflected in Ellis’ charming illustrations and simple words. The beauty of one's home as a place to be nurtured and to grow is poignantly on show throughout.
ages baby to grownup
Which moments in life matter to you? A new Baby? Learning to ride a bike? An evening under a night sky sequinned with stars? A restless night spent worrying? In moments like these, The Flying Orchestra comes to town.
Every once in a while, we each need something to jolt us out of the everyday and remind us that we each have it in us to do and be great. Amazing Babes does that - it's a book that's lovely to touch and to feel, beautiful to look at and simply inspiring to read.
ages 0 to >100 years
This is a brilliantly informative and fun book. It’s all about scale. Scale is tricky to understand for young children, but numbers can get so big that it becomes almost impossible to get a sense of scale even for older children, teens and adults. That's where this book comes in.
ages 4 years to grownup
Using an imagined conversation between God and Harriet Tubman, this book tells the true story of how Harriet found her way to freedom from slavery - and how she helped so many others to do the same. It’s just lovely to settle into and let the words and pictures swirl about as they do a very important work.
ages 4 to grownup
ages 4 years to grownup
It is not always in our most shining moments that our hearts are changed—sometimes it is in moments of despair or desperation. A young girl's heart is changed in this beautiful story. It's stunning and perfect!
A book of grammar that's fun for the most strident grammarian among us, yet still makes the rules accessible, enjoyable and memorable for the rest of us.
ages 4 to grown-up / language
When I think of picture books my thoughts always go to the story, which is funny considering we call them ‘picture’ books. But the artwork has a huge impact on our emotions and impressions when reading a picture book, adding depth and feeling. Talking about the artwork is so useful for developing emotional intelligence
ages 2 to 10