Alexa Dretzke
Alexa Dretzke is a children’s & YA book specialist at Readings Hawthorn
Review — 1 Sep 2023
In My Garden by Kate Mayes & Tamsin Ainslie (illus.)
Starting with the lively endpapers, we join different children around the world in their gardens.
Mostly, these gardens comprise indigenous plants of their country, but sometimes it is the wildlife…
Review — 1 Sep 2023
We Know a Place by Maxine Beneba Clarke
Bookshops are magical places and each one has its own charm. They contain the dreams and mysteries of authors’ imaginations; the amazing facts of our world and animals. Maxine Beneba…
Review — 30 Jul 2023
The Concrete Garden by Bob Graham
Bob Graham’s latest picture book displays all the wonderful hallmarks of his children’s books: community, diversity, acceptance, and, best of all, there is always a dog! Set amidst an enormous…
Review — 3 Jul 2023
I’m Your Favourite Book by Maggie Hutchings & Jess Racklyeft (illus.)
What’s your favourite book from your childhood? Do you still have it, or has it been handed along for others to enjoy? Books can be very resilient (up to a…
Review — 20 Apr 2023
The Tiny Tailors by Kat MacLeod
First, there was the utterly charming The Tiny Explorers: the tale of the tiny ones who collect natural treasures from deep in the flower garden as props for their party…
Review — 27 Mar 2023
Mulga Bill's Bicycle by A.B. Paterson, Kilmeny & Debora Niland (illus.)
The saying ‘pride comes before a fall’ aptly applies to Mulga Bill, who boasts about his ability to ride a bike based on his prowess on a horse. Oh dear!
…
Review — 27 Mar 2023
The Garden at the End of the World by Cassy Polimeni & Briony Stewart (illus.)
In a peaceful forest outside their house, Isla and her mum explore nature. One day, Isla finds an unusual seed pod. At story time that night her mum tells her…
Review — 3 Mar 2023
One Illumined Thread by Sally Colin-James
I read One Illumined Thread in November 2022, not knowing I would be reviewing it, and now I find my brain searching for detail, worrying all I have is the…
Review — 27 Feb 2023
The Hotel Witch by Jessica Miller
Sibyl is a trainee witch at the Grand Mirror Hotel. She is still puddling around using the Book of Domestic Magic while the more advanced and highly desirous manual of…
Review — 2 Nov 2022
Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati
Once upon a time in a tiny walled medieval village in Tuscany, with roughly 180 inhabitants, not long before a great plague descended, a woman returned to her birthplace. This…