books for teens
Ages 2 - 12
I once entertained a group of four teenage boys for close to an hour just by passing out these three books. Unfortunately, it was in a church meeting and the sniggering (and occasional outbursts of laughter) were not entirely appropriate!
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
ages 2 to 12 years
A perfect Australian Christmas picture book, it’s the story of Kathleen – a little girl who lives along Australia’s Nullarbor Plain – and of the Tea and Sugar Train which used to travel across the Plain each week. A charming balance to the OTT commercialism that sometimes surrounds Christmas.
ages 3 to grownup
I’ve been a John Williamson fan since childhood and a few months ago we were lucky enough to go to one of his concerts as a family. Amazing. There's really nothing quite like a live performance.
During intermission, I came across Christmas in Australia. I had no idea John Williamson had written a children’s book and just had to buy it—my only regret was that the kids were so exhausted by the end of the show we couldn't wait in the line to get it
a lovely book for all ages
'Opposites' books are pretty great—and not uncommon. They're wonderful for building kids' vocabularies and usually simple enough to keep even the little ones interested. Elephant Elements is a book of opposites, but it's not the common variety—more like one-of-a-kind.
ages 2 years to adult
In The Power and The Glory, Graham Greene wrote: “Hate is a lack of imagination.” Perhaps it follows that love is an abundance of imagination. There’s plenty of both to go around in the world just now, so I suppose the thing to do is notice imagination, encourage it, and let it build.
Sometimes we think of imagination as the stuff of fantasy worlds—The Lord of The Rings scaled down to everyday life, if you like. And that’s a wonderful way to imagine. But John Lennon’s Imagine reminds us that there’s more to imagination.
Since moving house a few months ago, I haven’t had as much spare time for reading as I'd like. I've re-read a few of the books from my library but just haven’t had my head on straight enough to search out new reads.
Thankfully a friend lent me Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody and it was just what I needed—a new author and a great read!
Set in the distant future after the world has experienced near total destructions by something known only as ‘The Great White’,
Did you watch it? I know, soooo good. Links here to @LevarBurton and @NeilTyson. But seriously, no pun intended, the planets are lining up for a revival of Good Night Moon. (Did it ever go away?)
It's a nostalgic revival, yes, but also an adult recognition and a nod to a book that's as effective and heartwarming now as when it was first published in September 1947—70 years ago!
ages 4 to adult
Having an enemy doesn’t always require a war, but always (always!) requires separate camps! Those camps could be foxholes, but they could also be duct tape lines across a shared bedroom floor, places to sit during lunch at school, or even a divided family.
In this book, 'There’s a war on.', and two soldiers are facing each other from holes in the ground. Just one soldier speaks to us, but we see both
ages 14 and up
The thing about kaleidoscopes is that they need to have two or more points of reflection. Without those points we see only a messy collection of colours and shapes. But, with those points, we see an extraordinary array of beautiful images that meld into each other to produce something inspiring. This book is a kaleidoscope of sorts.
Living on Hope Street is populated with multiple characters whose lives are difficult, heart wrenching and desperate in many different ways. But, as the novel unfolds, it presents that second point of reflection—and the messy collection of characters and circumstances come together to show lives of great beauty and complexity
The Giver is one of our family’s favourite books—it’s thought provoking and gripping and leaves you with a whole new way of looking at the world.
But it can also be a handy parenting tool. For instance, I found this on our family blog from 8 years ago, and thought I might share it with you:
Back when Presidents and their children read books, Malia Obama was photographed clutching Outside Beauty by Cynthia Kadohata.
I haven’t read it yet but it’s the story of four sisters, their beauty obsessed mother, and the way their lives all change after an awful accident. (I've read one of Kadohata’s other books — Kira-Kira — which I really liked. It’s a great book for early teens about life for Japanese Americans in the 1950’s.)
ages 12+
I love a great adventure story told with skill and wit, the kind that you can pick up, sit back, and enjoy. Frogkisser! by Garth Nix is just that. Here's how it goes:
All Princess Anya wants is to sit in the library and work on becoming a sorcerer (of the good variety).
But with an evil sorcerer step-father who wants to be king at any cost and a flighty older sister whose true love has been turned into a frog, something has to be done. It’s time for a Quest!
ages 4 to infinity
Everything leading up to our moving was, as it always is, hectic and messy. We didn’t get to do everything we'd have liked before we left, but we did get to visit GOMA’s 10 year anniversary exhibit.
GOMA is one of Ivy’s and my favourite places, we miss it. On our last (final) visit, we bought this fantastic book, 10 Ways to Make Art, from the shop:
Welcome, Savannah! By way of introduction, would you please tell us about your family?
I’m the oldest of 6 children. There are three boys and three girls and the youngest just turned five. I was born in Adelaide and we moved to Queensland as a family in 2008 when I was 8-years-old.
And school?
At school, my favourite subjects are History, Legal Studies and English. I'm also doing one subject at Uni this semester as a part of a scholarship. It’s from the Justice degree and it’s called Justice and Society ...
ages 6 years to grownup
Everyone knows what it is to feel different or misunderstood. It's part of modern life—we meet many people in many circumstances and we don’t always ‘click’. And that’s fine, mostly we just do what needs to be done and move on until we come to a place we really do fit. But, for some people, being different or misunderstood is a constant. Ivan is such a child and he tells us that he is, in fact, a crocodile:
“I look like a boy but, inside, I am a crocodile. It’s not something you can see, of course, because it’s inside.
ages 6 to grownup
It seems almost dystopian that there was a time when Aboriginal people were not counted in the population statistics. And when the laws and powers that were held by each State government resulted in segregation and broad discrimination...
Every so often, one of my prep (4 to 5-year-old) students brings me the dictionary, a huge encyclopaedia, or a chapter book akin to Lord of the Rings and requests that I read it to them. The mystery of a chapter book is so enticing: the wonder of what a story with so many words might tell is magical. It is so wonderful to read a chapter book to a child, but to start with Lord of the Rings can often lead to frustration.
However, there are many chapter books that are great for younger listeners! Here's what I look for:
ages 12 years and up
Hotaka is the tale of the town of Omori-wan, one of the Japanese villages devastated by the 2011 Tsunami and the people who are trying to learn to live after everything is swept away—it's told through the eyes of a young boy, Hotaka....
teens + y.a.
Modern mythical fantasy is all the rage these days. There have been books about Witches and Wizards, Vampires and Werewolves, Daemons and Demigods—you may be wondering what on earth is left. Well, Trolls! But the ugly, grumpy ‘live under a bridge and eat whatever crosses’ kind of troll is nowhere to be seen in Amanda Hocking's Frostfire. Set in modern day North America,....
One of our favourite family pastimes is planning trips. (We plan many more trips than we actually take!) Ivy gets into it too, she has plans to see sharks in the Great Australian Bite, visit the Eiffel Tower and go to Japan—no prizes for guessing where we’ve been talking about going lately.JAs well as trip planning, books with maps are great for learning about borders and sovereignty. Those are tricky concepts, but
the mind-blowing books in this post are great for ages 6 years and all the way up!
All the girls in the family are currently ‘toting’ these totes—the slogan spoke to us so we ordered four at once to save on postage. (We have to co-ordinate when we go out or risk looking like a gang.) Our group-buy was completely about the slogan; we didn't even look at size or shape....
The movie Hidden Figures is just wonderful—funny, frustrating, uplifting, beautiful—the full cinematic experience! But the book covers so much more (naturally). Here’s a clip of author Margot Lee Shetterly talking to one of Dorothy Vaughn’s* grandchildren. She talks about the movie and the other parts of the book.Hidden Figures Young Readers' Edition is wonderful too—
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...
ages 8 to 14 years
Beloved by parents, in part due to the cloistered risks the trip offers to children, camping is the stuff of dreams for many children too. Except when it’s not. For Henry Hoobler, who will go into year 3 at school when his family camping trip ends, there's some mild anxiety going on...
ages 6 years to adult
Because grief, when it visits, consumes us and seems to blanket all the world in sadness, our inclination is to shield children from its depths, or to show them how to escape as quickly as possible. It’s a strange, if quintessentially human, response. Our great love for the children we care about motivates us but
ages 5 years and up (if you're willing to read out subtitles)
Here’s a wonderful movie that you might like to try for a family movie night. Children of Heaven is an Iranian film about a boy who loses his sister’s only pair of shoes. Their family is poor and their mother is ill so the children conspire to share the boy’s shoes. It’s sad, funny, charming and troubling all at once.
ages 6 years to adult
Have you seen this website? It’s a collection of personal testimonies from people of the Stolen Generation. They're so very personal and real that I feel like a welcome, if naïve, guest. Each testimony includes a short personal statement
If you'd like special suggestions, please send us an email. We totally get that a need doesn't always fit neatly into an age group or category.
Ages 4 - Adult
I'm so grateful when stories like this are shared. It's inspiring, yes, but more than that it's a thing of beauty. Here, Uri Shulevitz tells a story of his own childhood; the story of his life as a refugee and the impact of a brave decision that his father made.