Curl up, get comfy and get into tales tall and true this summer

Ah school holidays – weeks of summer stretching in front of you, and so much time to read! If you need some recommendations for a good book, book publishers HarperCollins have you covered. Here are their top recommendations:

FUNNY STORIES
If you love nothing better than a good laugh from your books, never fear! Here are some favourite laugh out loud titles.

Fluff: Bullies Beware – Matt Stanton
Gilbert’s underpants are hanging on the school gate.

He must get revenge on the bully who put them there and who better to help than A BUNNY WITH ATTITUDE?!

A hilarious story full of heart and packed with drones, wedgies, rockets and Parmesan cheese!

From Matt Stanton, the creator of Funny Kid and The Odds, comes the best friend you could ever imagine … Fluff!

Funny Kid: Snowballs
Every kid wants to laugh, but Max is the boy who can make it happen. When Max and his friends holiday at a ski resort for the rich and famous, Max realises that everything he could ever need to be happy is all here in one place and he’s determined to fit in quick-smart!

Max is the funny kid, but will his jokes work in the snow?

Frozen pyjamas, fast cars, falling gracefully off cliffs, a wild mountain man, impossible chairlifts and a high-end fashion parade from Lost Property are just some of the things in store for Max and his friends in this brand-new Funny Kid adventure.

Funny Kid is the mega-best-selling series from author – illustrator Matt Stanton that has everyone laughing!

The Blunders – David Walliams

Meet the Blunders: Bertie, Betsy, their children Brutus and Bunny, their beloved grandma Old Lady Blunder and their pet ostrich, Cedric. An ostrich is not a sensible pet, but then the Blunders are not sensible people. They are the silliest, clumsiest, funniest family in the world.

This family of hapless blunderers live in a crumbling country house named Blunder Hall. But when they find themselves facing a terrible threat, they must do what they’ve never done before – come together, Blunder to Blunder, as a family, to save Blunder Hall. What could possibly go wrong …?

ADVENTURE STORIES
Love nothing better than going on adventure with your favourite characters? Here are some recent favourites:

Copycat – Kelli-Anne Hawkins
There are some things about Seagull’s Nest that 11-year-old Skye Starling likes …

•Egg sandwiches (tick)

•Admiral Mittens (her cat) who’s always trying to get her attention (tick)

•Writing mystery stories about star detective Red Fox (tick)

•Spying on suspicious townsfolk with her new friend Bailey (tick)

•The Annual Squawk Awards (tick)

And there are some things she doesn’t like at all …

•Winston, the Mayor’s chicken (he pecks!) (cross)

•Her freshly finished novel being stolen (cross)

•The crimes in her novel happening in REAL LIFE! (cross)

•Everyone in the town acting suspiciously (cross)

•Being the only one who can find the real criminal! (cross cross cross!)

Will Skye uncover the crime wave culprit in time to save the town?

Kip of the Mountain – Emma Gourlay
Kip Boowitt wants a best friend. So, when she rescues a tiny creature that looks like a kitten but isn’t a kitten, she names him Buffel and loves him with all her heart.

With a distracted dad and mean kids at school, all Kip wants is someone with two ears and time for her. And Buffel is the best listener. But when he’s kidnapped, there is only one thing to do — go from mountain to sea to get him back.

MAGIC STORIES
Sometimes there’s nothing as exciting as curling up with a great book that has a touch of magic in it. Here are some top picks:

The Fortune Maker – Catherine Norton
Which is more dangerous – a future you can’t see – or one that you can?

London, 1913 – Twelve-year-old Maud Mulligan knows there’s no future for her in London, in the rat-infested slum where she grew up. But in the tunnel under the river are fortune tellers, Seers, who will tell your fortune for a few pennies. And then there is Mr Mandalay, Seer to the king and anyone else rich enough to afford him.

When Mr Mandalay sees Maud in a foretelling for a wealthy factory heiress, she believes Maud can save her family from financial ruin. But how? And why?

In a world shaken by suffragettes, scientists, and the threat of war, what could a girl like Maud do to change anyone’s future – or even her own?

Hats of Marvello – Amanda Graham
No matter how much Olive longs for a pet rabbit, it’s never going to happen. Not when she lives in an Australian country town where most people think they’re a pest. So, imagine Olive’s shock when she unexpectedly finds not one, but one hundred and one rabbits. And one of them can talk!

How Olive will ever be able to hide and protect the rabbits is going to be her greatest challenge, and all while preparing for the Year 5 play. At least she has her costume ready, although the old top hat she found in the local op-shop seems very odd …

HISTORY STORIES
Do you love reading all about long ago? Here are some top historical reads:

Silver Linings – Katrina Nannestad
Nettie Sweeney has a dad, three big sisters, a farm full of cows and a cat called Mittens. But it’s not enough. She longs for a mother. One with a gentle touch and sparkles in her eyes. Instead, she has Aunty Edith with slappy hands, a sharp tongue and the disturbing belief that peas are proper food.

When Dad marries Alice, all Nettie’s dreams come true. The Sweeney home overflows with laughter, love and, in time, a baby brother. Billy. The light of Nettie’s life.

Then tragedy strikes. The Sweeney family crumbles. Nettie tries to make things right, but has she made everything so much worse?

Ming and Hilde Lead a Revolution – Jackie French
Ming Qong is convinced that girls have changed history throughout the world. She’s faced danger and adventure when Herstory sent her to the past to witness girls’ bravery in the incredible feats left out of ‘histories’. Now Ming asks Herstory for another time-travelling quest – this time, one that is less confronting.

Ming finds herself in relative luxury, heading to an unknown destination on a ship carrying royal Saxon sheep, travelling with the girls who care for them.

What do female shepherds have to do with history? And is it even possible for sheep to be royal? As Ming knows only too well, change is never easy, so how can one girl – and a sheep – change the world?

TRUE STORIES
Do you get way more excited about a true story than one that’s made up? Here are some you’re going to love!

Secret Sparrow – Jackie French
In 1917 sixteen-year-old Jean McLain is working as a Post Office assistant in England. But when she wins a national Morse code competition, the British army makes a request Jean cannot refuse – to take a secret position as a signaller in France.

If Jean can keep the signals flowing between headquarters and the soldiers at the Front, Britain might possibly win the war. But the British army is determined to hide its desperation – and will go on to burn every document that showed how women and girls were working behind the scenes, in the trenches and even in battles during World War I.

Decades later, an old woman tells the story of ‘the telegraph girl’: the friends she lost, the man who loved her, and the happiness she so surprisingly found again.

Based on true events, this story of adventure, courage and unshakeable loyalty restores women and girls to their place in history that the authorities tried to erase.

Champion – Ash Barty
“It’s a tennis story. It’s a family story. It’s a teamwork story. It’s the story of how I got to where and who I am today,” Ash Barty said of her book “Champion.”

“My story is about the power and joy of doing that thing you love and seeing where it can take you, from the first time I picked up a tennis racquet as a young girl in Queensland to the night I packed up my tennis bag at Melbourne Park after winning the 2022 Australian Open.

“I’m the girl who worked through self-doubt, homesickness and a break from the sport to realise my tennis dreams, winning Wimbledon and ranking number 1 in the world.

“Maybe my story will inspire you to follow your dreams – I really hope it does.”

CHARACTER-BASED STORIES
Do you prefer a gentle story with wonderful characters you connect with on a deep level? Meet some of our favourite characters:

Millie Mak the Maker – Alice Pung and Sher Rill Ng
Ten-year-old Millie Mak has discovered she has a superpower!

Millie has been taught how to sew by her two grannies. Using recycled materials, she has learnt how to take everyday objects and turn them into something new, beautiful and useful. Who would ever think that a sunhat could be made from an old bedsheet, a skirt from a tea towel, or some hair scrunchies from a scarf?

With this new-found talent, Millie and her friends solve real-life problems through creativity and clever thinking.

You can make the special objects Millie creates from the detailed and yet easy-to-follow instructions included in the book. And best of all, nothing needs to be bought!

The Travelling Bookshop: Mim and the Disastrous Dog Show – Katrina Nannestad
Mim Cohen roams the world in a travelling bookshop, with her dad and brother and a horse called Flossy. Flossy leads them where she will, to the place where they’re needed most … the place where the perfect book will find its way home.

Now Mim has arrived in the Cotswolds, just in time for a dog show. The judge, Lord Melville-Timms, is in a pickle. He has judged cakes and flowers and vegetables, but never dogs. And his bulldog, Bubbles, is shamefully disobedient!

Mim knows they’re here to help Lord Melville-Timms. To give him courage. To prevent a dog-show disaster.

If only Mim could find Lord Melville-Timms the right book. If only Dad would stop giving him the wrong book.

POLL

GLOSSARY

• hapless: unfortunate
• suffragettes: women who protested for the right to vote in the early 1900s
• heiress: a woman who inherits something
• shamefully: embarrassingly

EXTRA READING
Have you read these Aussie kids’ favourites?
David Walliams visits Kids News
Ash Barty talks to Kids News about her new books

QUICK QUIZ
1. What is the name of the David Walliams book recommended by HarperCollins?
2. How many authors have more than one book listed as recommendations?
3. In which city is the Fortune Maker set?
4. Who taught the book character Millie Mak how to sew?
5. Which book is written by a famous Aussie sportsperson?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Summer reading
Choose three books from the summer reading list printed in the Kids News article that you would like to read these holidays.

Look up your local library or call in to see if you can borrow or reserve it ready to read while relaxing by a pool or in the backyard.

List the three books you chose below and why you would like to read that book:

1.

2.

3.

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
Is there a book you enjoyed that isn’t on the summer reading list?

Try and think of two books you’d recommend to others your age and write a short description of them both.

Pass your recommendations on to your classmates.

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Vocabulary recycle
There is some vivid vocabulary being used in the article, and I am not just talking about the glossary words. Go through the article and highlight the high-level language that you are impressed by in yellow.

See if you can borrow two of these wow words to reuse in your own way.

Remember vocabulary is a great way to connect with the audience, but you need to think about who your audience is so you make great word choices.

Who will the audience be in your recycled sentences?