Best Suited 8-11 Years
Pearly Woe is a worrier.
On remote Mammút Island off the coast of Iceland, Pearly’s worrying is put to the ultimate test when she and Pig are winched from a helicopter onto the island to complete a five-day survival challenge – alone.
But they are not alone. And that is not the only surprise in store for Pearly and Pig as Mammút Island reveals its many secrets.

2024 CBCA Book of the Year Notable

Best Suited 2-5 Years
The Wheelbarrow Express is a heartfelt and rollicking tale about the special love between a grandparent and a child.

It’s Tommy’s last day at Pa’s farm and it’s time to say goodbye. Tommy doesn’t want to go. Not yet. He loves the farm and its playful pigs and clucking chickens and galloping goats and the dam that is deep and blue and perfect for skimming stones. And he loves Pa.

But Pa has a plan: there’s time for one last run on the Wheelbarrow Express. Toot! Toot! All aboard!

Best Suited 8-11 Years
Pearly Woe is a worrier. She worries about everything, especially that she’ll never be brave enough to become a member of the top-secret group of stealth adventurers – The Adventurologists’ Guild. Pearly also has a special talent – she can talk to animals. Her favourite animal to talk to is her pet pig, called Pig. But with her parents missing, Pig pig-napped and Pearly a stowaway on an icebreaker heading for Antarctica, Pearly’s worries just got REAL.

2024 CBCA Book of the Year Notable

Best Suited 8-11 Years
Pearly Woe is a worrier.

But there is no room for worries when you are trying to prove yourself. Yet this is little comfort to Adventurologist-in-training, Pearly Woe, as she motors down the mighty Mekong River on another adventure. Pearly, Pig and the entire Woe family are destined for the kingdom of Anachak, where they plan to search for the lost city of Mu Savan.

A jungle adventure! What could go wrong?

Everything. Of course!

Best Suited 9-12 Years old
You have a big heart. And people blessed with a big heart have a choice to make. Do they fill that heart with light and love or do they fill it with darkness and hate? This is your choice to make, Matilda. Make it wisely.

Tilda Moss refuses to believe her papa has abandoned her and left her, alone and orphaned, in Brushwood Convent and Home for Girls, no matter what Sister Agatha says. A promise is a promise and Papa promised he would be back for her as soon as he returns from the war.

But Tilda is convinced the dreadful Sister Agatha is out to get her. Why is she so hateful all the time? She insists that Matilda declare to all at the convent that she is an orphan. She is not an orphan and she will never say it! Something is amiss and Tilda and her best friend Annie need to find out what before it is too late.

Best Suited 5-8 Years
Nana and I walk through the paddock most days. And you know what? An echidna lives here. We don’t always see it. But I’m always looking for it.

As a young child and their nana go for walks together, they follow a short-beaked echidna keenly observing and discussing what its life might be life. Learn with them about what echidnas eat, where they live, and how they protect themselves.

Best Suited 4-8 Years
Beware the deep, dark forest! You should never, ever go in there… Rosie has always followed this rule until the day her pup Tinky goes missing in the woods. So Rosie decides to trek into this dangerous, muddy place. But there are many obstacles along the way – including a huge grey wolf, a scary ravine and a ferocious troll!

Best Suited 3+ Years
Bruno was too excited for his jam toast. Today was his Big Day. Today, Bruno was going for a swim. A swim in the sea – the big blue sea. But will he be brave enough?

Best Suited 8-12 Years
A story about a boy staying with his prickly cactus-devotee relatives who discovers one of their plants is not only precious and rare – it’s totally freaky.

Three weeks with the rellies at Cactus Court. No City Skate. No mates. No fun. Could life get much worse for Jayden? Of course it could. And what’s more, it did.

Best Suited 9+ Years
Cooper Jones wishes his life was simple – like it used to be. When all he needed to worry about was whether to get up for swim training or sleep in.
Suddenly, his life’s become complicated.Cooper can’t stop thinking about his dad – a man he has never known – and now Mum’s starting to act weird too.
When the gorgeous Abbie arrives in Wangaroo Bay, Cooper realises that he’s not the only one whose life is complicated.
With tensions growing and bushfires threatening, Cooper needs to get a grip – fast.

Best Suited 3-7 Years
A very hungry fox in search of food stumbles into one wrong fairytale after another trying to flee some very high-profile fairytale characters, eventually giving Henny Penny the fright of her life.

Have you ever wondered why Henny Penny thought the sky was falling? Well, here’s a story that might just give you the answer. Told from Fox’s point of view this magical tale links fairy story and nursery rhyme characters in a delightful, funny and quirky way. All Fox wants is a tasty meal to fill his hungry belly. But he keeps wandering into the WRONG stories. No dinner for him – just more trouble! Will Fox ever find the RIGHT story?

Best Suited 13+ Years
Mackenzie da Luca’s mother is missing – she’s vanished without a trace in the jungles of Panama. Now, 116 days later Mackenzie and her dad are in those same jungles. Her dad is desperate to find out what’s happened to his wife. And Mackenzie is desperate to make sure he doesn’t.

Best Suited 5+ Years
Platypus leaves his burrow in the riverbank and dives into the cool green pool. It is dusk and he is hungry. Platypus is always busy, always moving, looking for his next meal. Follow platypus as he plays, swims, dives and scurries around his riverbank home.

Best Suited 13+ Years
It’s as if the wooden chest is luring me, urging me to open it – daring me almost. Open me up. Look inside. Come on, just for a second; it won’t hurt.

Celina O’Malley was sixteen years old when she disappeared. Now, almost forty years later, Bayley is sleeping in Celina’s room, wearing her clothes, hearing her voice. What does Celina want? And who will suffer because of it? A ghost story. A love story. A story of revenge.

Best Suited 10-17 Years
Chance is in Year 7 and thinks she has it all – a loving mother, dog Tiges, best friend and almost-sister next door. But when a reality TV team makes over her house, she discovers newspaper cuttings from the past that cause her to question the world as she knows it and everyone in it. Then she finds herself caught between two realities, identities and worlds. Face-to-face with the truth, Chance has a very difficult decision to make, which almost splits her in two.

Best Suited 3-7 Years
Jack, Mia, the narrator and their teacher, Mrs Iverson, are pretending to be firefighters. They zoom through the playground in their pretend fire engines and save the imaginary Lulu’s Ice creamery from destruction. Just when they think their adventure is over, a real fire engine with real firefighters on board arrives for a surprise visit.

Best Suited 3+ Years
Tilly has butterflies in her tummy. One day a visitor arrives who shows Tilly how to keep her butterflies at bay. A story about how to cope with anxiety in those early years of school.

Best Suited 3-8 Years
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy is a fairy tale which includes sweetmakers, sugarplums and, of course, The Sugar Plum Fairy. Can Marcus and Mary make enough sugarplums for the greedy King? The Sugar Plum Fairy comes to their rescue as she dances to the sounds of the famous Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from The Nutcracker Ballet.

Best Suited 10-14 Years
Hate mail, Broken windows, Graffiti, A missing galah. What does it all mean? Hairy Legs, the foul-mouthed, but much loved, pet shop galah has been stolen. The residents of Tompkin Park are devastated. None more, than Britt Brady, whose orderly life is thrown into chaos as she and Dimi pursue Hairy Legs’ captors – a pursuit that ultimately leads them into the dark and dangerous world of organised crime. ‘Nothing is as it seems, Britt Brady. Remember that.’