Audio transcript

Between the bookshelves – 3. Danielle Binks

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You're listening to 'Between the bookshelves', the official podcast of the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge. I'm your host, Jade Arnold, the Premier's Program Officer, Reading and Spelling, at the Arts Unit. Join me as I chat with children's and young adult authors and other experts in education and children's fiction, as we talk about the books and the strategies that may spark or reignite a love of reading. Let's dive in.

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Welcome to episode 3 of 'Between the bookshelves'. I'm joined today by award-winning author Danielle Binks. She's the author of young adult titles 'Begin, End, Begin', and 'The Monster of Her Age', and middle-grade titles 'The Year the Maps Changed', and her latest release, 'Six Summers of Tash and Leopold', all of which feature on either the 5 to 6 or the 7 to 9 PRC booklists. Danielle, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?

DANIELLE BINKS: I'm good. Thank you so much for having me. We were just discussing we both have curly hair. So, we've just been sharing tips and tricks on how to get through Sydney humidity. But thank you very much. I feel very welcomed, very excited to be here. Thank you.

JADE ARNOLD: Well, thank you for joining us. Sorry for the humidity. But your hair looks amazing today. So, Danielle, one of the key aims of the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge, or the PRC, as we like to call it, is being able to connect children and young adults with stories that they'll fall in love with. So, with that in mind, we like to do something that we call 'between the bookshelves' pitch instead of an elevator pitch.

So, imagine, if you will, a student is standing between the bookshelves in their school or local library or bookshop in the B section. And they see your titles there, and maybe they've got a little PRC sticker on the spine of the book. And you've got to help them make that decision to take your book home. So, could you give us the 'between the bookshelves' pitch for your latest release, 'Six Summers of Tash and Leopold', which features on the 5 to 6 PRC booklist, and tell us what this book is about and what type of reader you think would enjoy it?

DANIELLE BINKS: 'Six Summers of Tash and Leopold' is about neighbours and ex-best friends Tash and Leopold, who had a pretty big falling out in primary school. And we meet them in the transition weeks, months, going from Year 6 into Year 7.

And during that transitional period, for very different reasons, they both experience school refusal. So, they're staying home a lot. And because of this, they're being thrown back together again, having to revisit their history, their very recent history collapse of their friendship. And they're getting very interested in perhaps a decades-old mystery in their neighbourhood of Noble Park, and in particular, getting interested in a neighbour who's become a bit of a recluse.

So, they're thrown together again. It's a big friendship drama, family drama, big hopes, big feels. Absolutely.

JADE ARNOLD: And what type of reader do you think would enjoy reading it?

DANIELLE BINKS: The type of reader that I was. So, somebody who maybe sometimes enjoys a big cry, who's big into feels, especially, I would say, someone who's wanting some affirming friendship novels, that goes through the real dramas, I feel like, of primary school, where there are fallouts, but you can reconnect. And also, kids who kind of want to be better equipped to talk their feelings out maybe?

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, I'd say that's spot on and I can definitely vouch for the 'cry your eyes out'. Definitely have some tissues handy at the end, I would say.

DANIELLE BINKS: Good.

JADE ARNOLD: But certainly, a phenomenal book. So, obviously I was fortunate enough to review this title myself, so, I'd love to ask you some really specific questions about 'Six Summers of Tash and Leopold' before we talk about your other books, if that's OK.

DANIELLE BINKS: Absolutely.

JADE ARNOLD: One of the things that I felt was particularly special in 'Six Summers of Tash and Leopold' was the way that you tackled these very serious and important topics in a really digestible format for middle-grade readers. So, you've got Leopold, who, amongst some really complex family issues, is struggling with anxiety. His neighbour and childhood friend, Tash, is a cancer survivor. And all these issues that unfold around them are set against this backdrop of this neighbourhood that's undergoing development in a way that's really at odds with the community.

So, what inspired you to focus on these issues in 'Six Summers of Tash and Leopold', and why do you think it's important to touch on these types of topics in middle-grade novels?

DANIELLE BINKS: I think there's a real gap between when you're in that transitional period, and maybe you're not yet ready for the upper end of young adult literature. I speak to so many kids who, when I say to them, 'What don't you want to read in books anymore?' and one of the main things they'll say is 'love triangles'. I'm so sick of love triangles.

JADE ARNOLD: [laughs]

DANIELLE BINKS: And why is every character 16? And it is funny when you're talking to 11-, 12-, 13-year-olds. They're getting more mature. But YA can often far surpass what they're wanting to read and where they're at and what they're feeling. So, I feel like middle grade plugs that in-between stage. It's the middle years. It's that very liminal space of you are still a kid, but you are transitioning more into young adulthood.

You're starting to recognise empathy for others a lot more. And you're broadening your community circles a lot more. And you're realising that you have a role to play in your community of school, in your family life as well. You're kind of realising that you have a much bigger and more exciting role to play in your own life as well. So, I feel like when I was that age, I would sometimes read adult books.

Back in the days, I do want to say, one of my books I wrote, set in 1999, 'The Year the Maps Changed', because that's when I was a 12-year-old. And now, when I go and speak about that book to schools, they do say that I was born in the 1900s, or I lived in the 1900s. Oof! That is right to the guts.

JADE ARNOLD: [laughs]

DANIELLE BINKS: But I will say, back in the day, when I was a kid, we didn't have middle-grade literature. There was young adult literature. And I did read a lot of that and probably a few books beyond where I was actually at, a lot of Maureen McCarthy, a lot of John Marsden, very serious topics sometimes.

So, I didn't have middle grade. And I would often leapfrog into adult literature, which was also fine. And I really have some wonderful adult books. But I want to write about that liminal space for the kids who feel like they're not represented anywhere else. And I don't mind if I have kids who are slightly older than the characters' ages. Because some kids develop at different times. They're still going through friendship dramas. And they're not ready for all the love triangles and dystopian literature of YA sometimes.

JADE ARNOLD: Absolutely. Look, I remember reading 'Looking for Alibrandi' when I was in Year 6. Fantastic story. Probably not the right book for me in Year 6. So, something like 'Tash and Leopold' or middle-grade fiction is really important at filling that space. And that's one of the things that I love about the Premier's Reading Challenge booklist is that even though it's on the 5 to 6 booklist, that's the universal booklist.

So, any student in any challenge level, all the way up from Year 10, all the way down to, I mean, Kindergarten, if they were really able, could read that book and add it to their reading log. And, yeah, middle grade is absolutely something that a lot of Year 7 and Year 8 students, in my experience, definitely gravitate to as they're kind of working towards that stage.

But something that really stood out to me in 'Six Summers of Tash and Leopold', and also in 'The Year the Maps Changed', was this depiction of adults in your stories. So, they're these really flawed and complex people who experience growth, and they approach Leopold's anxiety in really different ways. You've got Leo's mother, who's trying really hard to support her son's anxiety, but just doesn't have the right tools or the understanding to be there for him in the right way, especially at the start.

You've got Leo's father, who's over in Western Australia, and he's trying to recover from a gambling addiction and repair the financial damage that he's done to his family. And then you've got Uncle Alex, who's this incredibly perceptive person, and he really meets Leo where he's at. So, what was the drive behind, including these characters? And did you draw from anyone you know?

DANIELLE BINKS: So, 2 things-- one of the books that I read when I was way too young, I was probably about 13 when I first read John Steinbeck's 'East of Eden', which, I was that kid. Yes, absolutely. I was-- my mum had a collection of the entire works of John Steinbeck.

And I was just one of those really pretentious kids, but it really stuck with me. It's genuinely one of my favourite books. And I've gone back, and I've reread it, and I've realised how much it's informed a little bit of my worldview. Just one of those books to read at a time when you're very formative, and it just imprints on your heart a little bit.

And he has this particular line in 'East of Eden', talking about the first time that a child catches adults out. And it kind of walks into their grave little minds that adults do not have all the answers. And there's this closing line to it, which says 'It is an aching kind of growing'. And I feel like that's what I always write about. It's an aching kind of growing.

And I feel like I do not have children of my own. But I'm a dedicated auntie. And there's lots of children in my life from my friends and my family who've had kids. And I'm Auntie Dan to all of them. So, I feel like I am getting the perspective of my friends who have becoming parents for the first time and realising that they don't know what they're doing. They're just winging it every day.

And that realisation, as you get older and you look at how young your parents were when they had you and realising, oh, they didn't have all the answers either. I thought they did.

JADE ARNOLD: And they still don't.

DANIELLE BINKS: And they still don't. So, I feel like I write from this place where it's very easy for me to tap back into what it was to be a 12-year-old, 11-year-old, a 10-year-old. Just because of the way my brain works, there are some days that I can remember primary school clearer than what I had for dinner last night.

But at the same time, I can't help but see the dynamics of observing adults in my life who are becoming parents for the first time. And I'm realising that there's no parachute. They're just free-falling and trying to figure it out. So, I kind of love showing that, both so that kids can know adults don't have all the answers, and that's OK. They're also still working through it. They're not perfect. Because I think it is an aching kind of growing.

And I also write that for any parents who are maybe reading along with the books or are teaching the books, or just any adults who want to read middle-grade fiction. I still do, absolutely. Sort of speaking to them, but not really, but just acknowledging that it's OK to not have all the answers. And probably one of the worst things you can do with kids is pretend like you are the authority; that you are godlike.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah.

DANIELLE BINKS: Because they will eventually catch you out. They will eventually catch on that you don't have all the answers. So, I kind of write this from the perspective of me as an adult who feels like I'm still in an aching kind of growing. And I also write from that perspective of a kid who, if you do realise that adults can muck up as well, that's kind of beautiful. And maybe I'd write that as well so that kids go a little bit easier on their parents and guardians because they're going through it as well. We all are.

I'm trying to grow empathy for everybody. So, I feel like I don't write anybody who has all the answers and is a perfect human being.

JADE ARNOLD: That's really beautiful. I love that. While we're on the topic of adult characters, as a teacher librarian myself, it was genuinely so lovely to see Leo's primary school librarian, Mx Chambers, play a really important role as a supporting character. And I'm sure a lot of the teacher librarians listening out there would feel the same.

Leo is also a library leader. And his mother had aspirations of becoming a librarian before life got in the way. So, can I ask, as a lover of libraries myself, why did you choose to make this mentor character a school librarian?

DANIELLE BINKS: Because they're the best people? [chortling]

JADE ARNOLD: Agreed.

DANIELLE BINKS: I've encountered a lot of them in my travels now as a working author. And they're just the best, kindest, most lovely people. And the libraries I go to I see how much they mean to the kids, and I see how much they pull a school community together.

And on the other end of the spectrum, I've been to public schools, which is really unfortunate, maybe sometimes private, but public schools have gotten rid of their school library, and they've digitised it completely. And there was one I went to in particular. I won't say where in case they listen to this. But it really hurt my heart. They digitised their library last year.

And part of the reason at this public school, that was kind of in a lower economic area, part of the reason was the school board, or the higher-ups had decided that the kids couldn't be trusted with physical books. And talking to the English teachers about it, it was amazing how they said the kids feel that. The kids feel the lack of trust. They feel the lack of--

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, absolutely.

DANIELLE BINKS: --safe spaces to go to now. And you felt it during lunchtime, that there was just a cohort of kids really going through it who didn't have that place to go away to, that was quiet, that they could regulate. It was seeing both ends of the spectrum-- amazing instances of school libraries and then places where people don't realise that students need school libraries.

And I could see the immediate effects of that. Nobody was happy with the decision. That was probably cost-cutting as well. So, it was writing to the-- both ends of that spectrum. But ultimately, I fall very much into the category of students need school libraries, not just always for the physical books themselves, but it is a place to go and be quiet and to regulate, if you are a student who needs that.

It's also a place for information gathering, not just for fiction reading, though that's what I used it for when I was a kid. And also, school librarians have such a huge input on trying to get collections that reflect their kids as well. I think that's really important. And they also speak to the English teachers about what should you be studying? What could you possibly put onto the syllabus?

All of that is so important to reflect the school community back to itself. So, I very much slip that character in there just to say I love, love, love this profession. I admire it so greatly. And I have seen the consequences when schools deny children school libraries. And I think it's horrendous.

JADE ARNOLD: That love is very much, very deeply felt from my perspective, at least. And I think, just springboarding off what you were saying about having that space for students to go to. I think in NSW in particular, we have teacher librarians. So, they're duly qualified teachers and librarians.

And just having a space in the school where students can access a teacher who isn't their regular classroom teacher just means that these students have the opportunity to talk to an adult and get a bit of support from a teacher who they can then choose not to see later.

So, if they're going through something really rough or really tough, often it's the teacher librarian that they'll go to perhaps before the school counsellor, because they've already got that kind of relationship with them. And it's just beautiful to have that additional level of support. And I really see that through how Leo comes back to Mx, especially after he leaves and is at Como High School, he still comes back to that support person. It's so beautiful.

DANIELLE BINKS: Well, thank you.

JADE ARNOLD: But I also really loved how Mx Chambers acted as this really clever tool to introduce some really sophisticated vocabulary into a text in a way that doesn't break the reader's suspension of disbelief, that a 12-year-old would know and use words like ephemeral casually but also provides them with a definition so that your readers can hopefully add that word to their arsenal as well.

And you do this really well in 'The Year That the Maps Changed', too. So, now that I've mentioned that book, could you give us your 'between the bookshelves' pitch for 'The Year the Maps Changed', which was a 2021 Children's Book Council of Australia notable book and features on the 5 to 6 booklist as well.

DANIELLE BINKS: Yes, this is the aforementioned one, set in 1999, which is the 1900s to children reading it now. So, prepare yourself. It's historic fiction. Prepare yourself. It's set in 1999 for the very specific reason, that was a year of the Kosovo War and something called Operation Safe Haven, which remains Australia's largest ever humanitarian exercise, when we brought across about 1,500 Kosovo Albanian refugees fleeing the conflict in Kosovo.

And it's set in the Mornington Peninsula, where I grew up, because one of the locations of the Safe Havens was Point Nepean Quarantine Station, near where I grew up. And I remembered this event happening. I didn't remember it so clearly that I could write it from memory. I had to go and do research that was triggered by around about 2016, when there was discussions about reopening the quarantine station to be an asylum centre for refugees. And that was struck down because people's memories of Operation Safe Haven were so different to how we treat refugees and asylum seekers now.

So, it's a big-hearted book about real events that happened, real refugees who came to Australia seeking asylum from a war-torn country. But it's also about my protagonist, Fred, who is going through their own upheaval. And the geography of their family is being rewritten because their stepfather-- who was just their father. It's never kind of delineated. It's step. It's father-- has got a new partner who's pregnant. And Fred is feeling very much like she's being drawn off the map of her family. So, that's the kind of connection with maps as a theme.

JADE ARNOLD: Such a beautiful title. And what type of readers do you think this book would appeal to?

DANIELLE BINKS: So, I always say it's a good one for anyone who enjoyed 'Wolf Hollow' by Lauren Wolk or 'The Thing About Jellyfish' by Ali Benjamin, or any books by Fiona Wood and Nova Weetman, who I feel like this is also true for 'Six Summers of Tash and Leopold'. If you're a big Fiona Wood or Nova Weetman fan or a Cath Crowley fan, I feel like my books probably would be very suitable to you, which is just me also saying you might cry.

JADE ARNOLD: [laughs]

DANIELLE BINKS: There's big feels, tender heart in it. But, yes, so, that's my kind of cohort of who I feel like I would be sitting next to on the shelf.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, absolutely. So, as you've just mentioned, obviously 'The Year the Maps Changed' is set in Victoria in 1999 and focuses partially on the 4,000 Kosovar Albanian refugees that were eventually granted temporary protection visas by Australia. And as you've just mentioned, it was the discussion around reopening that centre in 2016 for an asylum centre that was the inspiration behind writing that book.

So, given that it's been almost 20 years after those events occurred, what is it that makes you think that this book is still relevant in 2025, given that it's events based in 1999?

DANIELLE BINKS: I think for me, when I was researching it, I couldn't believe that Operation Safe Haven and the Kosovo War remains Australia's largest ever humanitarian exercise. We haven't before or since helped refugees to that extent ever again. But we've still had more wars and conflicts around the world than ever before.

We're also going to see more migrants and refugees because of climate catastrophe being moved around the globe. I say that the study of geography, which I hated when I was in school, but researching for this, I came to really find it quite beautiful because I'm a huge history nerd. And I never realised that geography is basically history-- it's people who draw the maps-- and that the study of geography is just the study of how people move across the Earth's surface.

And of course, one of the 2 main things for that is conflict and just dire consequences, where you can no longer live where you grew up for whatever reason, whether that's because of conflict or because the sea tides are rising or something is becoming so uninhabitable because of heat.

And I just couldn't believe that Australia did this amazing, incredible thing in 1999, because where I was sitting in 2016, we had the United Nations claiming that we were treating refugees torturously. And no one in the Australian government, apart from a few minor parties, were really talking about that. Everyone just sort of accepted that, well, yes. That's how we treat them now. We ship them offshore.

We leave them in indefinite detention, in permanent limbo, permanent liminal space, which is also really, as someone who's drawn to books about middle grade and young adults, that liminal time between adulthood. So, all these kind of liminal connections of just leaving people in limbo who have gone through utter crises.

And I just thought, what if I wrote a book about the last time that we did the decent thing, where Australia recognised we were a part of the global community and we helped, and it wasn't a foregone conclusion that we were going to help? There was pressure from the public on the government, which was a John Howard government at the time as well. And initially Philip Ruddock said it would just be really inappropriate to fly planeloads of people into the country. And then he did.

And people are really shocked that it was a John Howard-era policy to help these refugees. And we haven't done it before or since. But there are photographs of John Howard meeting and greeting refugees in the airport hangar, beside the Qantas plane that just flew thousands of them in. And I show that to kids, and they cannot imagine an Australian Prime Minister ever doing that again. And I kind of want to draw a spotlight to this and say, 'Isn't that sad? We did it once. Why can't we do it again.'

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah. We've got the blueprint. We could do it better.

DANIELLE BINKS: Yeah. And kids totally get that connection without me having to state it. When I start saying, 'Look at these photos.' And there's photos of Bill Clinton over in the US doing the same thing for Kosovar Albanian refugees that they took over there. And again, they can't imagine a Donald Trump doing that ever. They make the connections, and I find that beautiful. But it's just me putting it out there that this is a true history, and why can't we repeat it?

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, and just the relevance that something, from a student's perspective-- doesn't feel like it to us-- but from a student's perspective, happened so long ago.

DANIELLE BINKS: The 1900s, as I mentioned. Yes. Yep.

JADE ARNOLD: [laughs] When I was also in primary school. Before we move on to talking about your young adult titles, let's come back to our 'between the bookshelves' chat. Let's say that your young reader that we met earlier is standing between the bookshelves and has now devoured both 'Six Summers of Tash and Leopold' and 'The Year the Maps Changed' and is after something that will scratch the same itch, or at least a similar one. What books would you suggest that they try next?

DANIELLE BINKS: Gosh. The aforementioned, yeah, Fiona Wood, Cath Crowley, Zana Fraillon's 'The Bone Sparrow' as well--

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah. I can see very clear links between those.

DANIELLE BINKS: --which I love and adore, with such a full heart. I absolutely love that book. I love everything that she writes. I also feel like authors like Shivaun Plozza, Will Kostakis, Melina Marchetta, aforementioned. Dare I put my name in the same breath as Queen Melina, who is perhaps my favourite author. But I think I would-- anything that big hearted.

But Zana Fraillon's 'The Bone Sparrow' in particular-- if you want to go down the rabbit hole of looking at refugees and asylum seekers and how we treat them, I think 'The Bone Sparrow' would be maybe a number-one recommendation.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, absolutely. Stories that are definitely full of heart and very strong characterisation and deal with some really big issues as well, but very appropriate for that middle grade, some of those young adult formats. Those are some really wonderful recommendations for what to move on to next.

Moving on to your young adult titles now, your first foray into writing was with the 'Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology', which you both edited and contributed to, and it won the 2018 Book Industry Awards for the Year for Older Children. It features on the 7 to 9 PRC booklist and is what I would consider an essential part of any high school library collection. Could you give us your 'between the bookshelves' pitch for it?

DANIELLE BINKS: This collection was created in response to, I would say, a lack of representation on the most-borrowed lists of Australian YA titles. This was back in the day when the Australian Library Association started releasing their most-borrowed lists of public libraries, so, not school libraries, public libraries. And on 3 of the categories of adult fiction, adult non-fiction and children's books, it was evenly split. And the top 10 most borrowed it was always 5 international authors and 5 Australian.

But on the YA list, it was pretty much all American titles. And it was what you would expect. It was the stuff that was being adapted into film. It was 'Maze Runner', 'Hunger Games', 'Divergent', which I always crack a joke, and kids laugh, where I call it 'Detergent' because I sometimes forget that word.

So, it was just very poor showing. And there was sort of leaking into this wider discussion about, hey, we're being very Americanised in our youth literature of YA in particular, partly because that was what was being adapted at a really high rate. And I love these adaptations, let me be very, very clear. Jenny Han's 'To All the Boys I've Loved Before' and 'The Summer I Turned Pretty'. Cassandra Clare always being adapted.

Back in the days, it was John Green everything, and 'Twilight' absolutely had a big hand in informing Hollywood that, hey, YA should be tapped for adaptation. And we see it now at a huge rate because of streaming services. And sometimes we benefit from that-- 'Uglies' by Scott Westerfeld, who we claim as Australian because there is a connection via his wife.

JADE ARNOLD: We'll claim anything that we can.

DANIELLE BINKS: We'll absolutely claim anything. But it was part of this discussion of hey, our teenagers are not necessarily seeking out Australian books because they don't necessarily care. And that's completely fine. They just want to read whatever they want to read. And that's absolutely perfect.

But it was a conversation about how do we subtly start explaining to them that they probably should be interested in the books of their own backyard.

JADE ARNOLD: Because there's some fantastic examples.

DANIELLE BINKS: Because we have some amazing authors. And there are just some subjects that we touch on in Aussie YA, that Americans just will not care about and vice versa.

So, I would say something like gun control has a very different meaning for American YA literature than it does for Australian. Climate change, also a much bigger, I would say, role-- it should be everywhere, but in Australia in particular-- with kids who are seeing summer bushfires every year of their life now.

When we delve into cli-fi and climate fiction, like some wonderful-- Mark Smith does and Ambelin Kwaymullina does-- when we delve into that, it just means something very different for us. So, we just wanted to start having this subtle conversation with teenagers about, hey, you should read the books of your own backyard.

And behind that was also thinking, you're going to grow into an adult who's going to be a reader and hopefully a reader of Australian fiction so we can keep this entire industry and platform going and the cultural relevance and letting Australians know that our stories matter and that we have a voice and that we have places carved out for our storytellers. So, that was the inspiration behind it.

JADE ARNOLD: Wonderful. I have to confess, that was the first time that I'd come across some of our Australian YA authors, who are now on my instant buyer list. So, people like Ellie Marney, Amie Kaufman, Lili Wilkinson, if I see those books on a bookshelf, I buy them. I don't even read the blurb.

DANIELLE BINKS: That was the idea. That's perfect.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah. And there was a few on there that I'd already been kind of familiar with. So, Will Kostakis, I'd already discovered his works and, again, another instant buy for Australian fiction for me. But it just really highlights how anthologies like these are such a good way for readers to find new writers that they love.

I also wanted to point out to all of our listeners out there that all the authors that feature in 'Begin, End, Begin' also have other titles of their own on the PRC booklist. And that just to me, really highlights the quality and the strength of their writing and why you should check it out.

DANIELLE BINKS: Thank you.

JADE ARNOLD: So, last but certainly not least, your first young adult novel was 'The Monster of Her Age', which also features on the 7 to 9 booklist. And it won the 2022 Indie Book Award in the Young Adult category. Can you tell us about this title and who you think would enjoy reading it?

DANIELLE BINKS: This was inspired by a Linda Blair quote that I read. Linda Blair, who famously played the child actor in 'The Exorcist' horror film, where she once said, "'The Exorcist' has been a very interesting cross to bear.' Which is funny on a few levels, I will say.

But it got me. I'm a huge movie buff. I love film and television, and I love the history of film in Hollywood. I'm just a little bit obsessed with it. And I, at the same time, recognise that Hollywood is terrible for kids. It's terrible for a lot of people-- women as well, absolutely not great representation-- but children in particular, the number of horror stories you hear about child actors.

So, I wanted to write about that. And I wrote about it kind of inspired by Taylor Jenkins Reid, who's an adult author who often plays around and manipulates our real history and just pops in her own timeline. So, I did that. I made in-- bowing to one of my favourite actors and people, Drew Barrymore, who comes from the Barrymore acting dynasty-- I made a Hobart-based family who was a thespian creative cultural institution in Australia, who had this very long history of actors.

And I wrote a story about their youngest child, whose grandmother encouraged her to go into acting of a horror film, where she played the child monster in a horror film and had to grow up with being that cultural touchstone for people, of being the thing that people fear, similar to Linda Blair in 'The Exorcist', so, you can imagine Halloween masks made of their monster-child character.

They suffered a little bit of abuse on the set to do with emotional manipulation and also emotional manipulation from their grandmother, who pushed them into this particular job that they really didn't want to do. But it's about forgiveness as well, because when the book begins, the grandmother is on her deathbed.

And this teenage character, who's now grown up but is still carrying the weight of their reputation and their film history, has to find a way to acknowledge that their grandmother hurt them, that they have some family trauma. But they have to not move on, not forget, but they have to find a way to carry it. And there is also a queer romance in there, which I loved and adored writing.

And it's a bit of an homage to Hobart, which I love and adore as well. And I selected Hobart because of the Errol Flynn connection. But also, I just wanted the kind of old school, small community vibe of it. So, yes, it's my homage to making up a film history with threads of real Australian film history. And it's me talking about the ways that adults can hurt kids and the ways that kids can articulate and acknowledge that hurt and find a way to carry it.

JADE ARNOLD: Beautiful. So, obviously, this book deals with a lot more mature themes than your previous 2 that we've talked about, your previous 2 middle-grade titles. So, what type of reader do you think would really enjoy this one?

DANIELLE BINKS: Again, all those big feels-- Will Kostakis is a really great one. I feel like Will Kostakis does really beautiful family trauma with humour as well and with romance. So, I think he's a really good one. Again, Melina Marchetta for the same reasons as well, absolutely.

But I would just say, if you are a fan of movie history, if you're a fan of Drew Barrymore, probably this will be a book for you. If you're just interested in the history of child actors or just the history of film and television. And if you just want to see a slightly different Australian history brought to the forefront, this is probably the book for you.

JADE ARNOLD: Amazing. So, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to ask you this, so, tell me off if I'm not. But are you able to share if there's another Danielle Binks book in the works. Are you able to tell us what it's going to be about?

DANIELLE BINKS: If I share this, then this is good. This is me committing and holding myself accountable. So, this is good.

JADE ARNOLD: OK. It's been published now.

DANIELLE BINKS: So, yeah. So, if I put this out there, and people start asking me what's happening with that book that you mentioned, then this is really great. I think I'm going to stick with middle grade. And I think I'm actually going to go back to similar to 'The Year the Maps Changed', a historic middle-grade, but true history, this time not 1999. I'm going to go back to the First World War.

JADE ARNOLD: Oh. OK.

DANIELLE BINKS: But on the home front. I'm interested in internment during World War I, so, when people were vilified for being from the enemy home countries, and how Australia treated them. And, yes, that's what I want to write about. So, like I said, I've just made myself accountable by saying this.

JADE ARNOLD: [laughs] Well, thank you.

DANIELLE BINKS: It's going to be history because I also find writing to the parameters of history a little bit comforting, that there's a endpoint and a beginning point kind of naturally gifted to you. And you have to choose the time that you want to put it in.

JADE ARNOLD: And do a lot of research.

DANIELLE BINKS: Yes. I love research. I'm still a history nerd. So, I'm deep into research territory now.

JADE ARNOLD: Amazing. Well, that sounds very exciting. Very much looking forward to reading that one when it comes out. And thank you for sharing that with us. So, can I also ask, what are some of the books that have inspired or shaped you as a reader and as a writer as well? And are there any specific books out there that you'd recommend to any aspiring young writers?

DANIELLE BINKS: Well, I think, as we've mentioned, Queen Melina Marchetta kind of kicked off my love of Australian YA in particular. I just remember reading 'Looking for Alibrandi' and being amazed that somebody wrote about Sydney, though I'm a Melburnian. I didn't live there. I've had family here. I've travelled here many times. And I just couldn't believe that Sydney became a character in those books. And it really made me feel like, oh, our stories matter. It matters where you set a story.

JADE ARNOLD: And it felt Australian.

DANIELLE BINKS: And it felt Australian. That's a cultural touchstone for you.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, absolutely.

DANIELLE BINKS: That was just incredible to me. And I had the same feeling when I read 'Playing Beatie Bow' by Ruth Park, which I know is kind of old school now. But I remember reading about The Rocks. And every time I go to The Rocks in Sydney, I still walk around there looking for a fuzzy little girl because I remember that book. I remember how great it was that Sydney became a landmark in that story. So, those kind of feels.

But Melina Marchetta absolutely got me hooked on reading Aussie YA in particular, to the point that I then craved stories of my own backyard with places that I recognise and characters who felt real to me and like I could be friends with them. And I do still feel that about all of Melina Marchetta's characters, even though I reread her books now as an older person, as an adult, and I start finding myself aligning more with the adult characters.

I still feel and I love the perspective of the teenagers, but it's amazing how multifaceted her books are, that they are multi-generational, truly. And you can read them at different times in your own life and really connect with them at different points in your own life.

JADE ARNOLD: And get different things out of them.

DANIELLE BINKS: Absolutely.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah. Wonderful. Something that our listeners may not know about you is that you're also a literary agent. So, that means you're pretty knowledgeable about the Australian publishing industry. So, with that experience in mind, if you had any words of wisdom to share with the teacher librarians in NSW about what types of books to keep an eye out for when they're developing their library collection, what would they be?

DANIELLE BINKS: I know literacy is a really big discussion amongst schools right now. We've had the COVID years that really disrupted a lot of education. But I also know that kids more than ever have devices that are pulling them away from reading for joy, et cetera. I do think 2 forms of literature that you should really lean into-- verse novels. I think verse novels are incredible.

JADE ARNOLD: Absolutely. Agree.

DANIELLE BINKS: I represent Karen Comer, who just won the CBCA Book Award for 'Grace Notes' in 2024 for the older readers, which is a beautiful novel. She also has 'Sunshine on Vinegar Street'. I think verse novels are incredible. Kids love music, and they totally get lyrics. Think about how many kids are obsessed with Taylor Swift bridges.

Right?

If you can say to them, verse novels are basically lyrics. It's storytelling in the same format. Just give it a go, and there's-- those books are still thick. So, it doesn't feel like you're talking down to the kids. But the ways that some kids can connect with story for the first time when you put a tempo and a rhythm to it, I think it's just beautiful.

I even tell older kids, Year 11 and 12, who are wanting to improve their language skills, I say, start reading poetry. Evelyn Araluen, 'Dropbear'-- we have some incredible poets in this country. And I think if you start giving them a chance and reading those books, you will see an improvement in your own language skills. When you have less words to work with, your intent gets so precise and beautiful, and your economy of language really increases.

So, I say verse novels. And I also think leaning into graphic novels a lot more. I know we don't have a ton of them in Australia, but we do have some really incredible up-and-coming graphic novelists. Remy Lai is one who's incredible for middle grade. I love and adore Remy Lai.

One of my authors has a book coming out in a couple of years, Briar Rolfe. Keep an eye out for them. They're going to be incredible. But I know the Alice Oseman's and everything. I think some teachers, or some parents, get a little bit worried that graphic novels are not the highest form of reading and learning. But they are. If you really think about it, you're connecting images and words, which is what we do in our everyday life.

JADE ARNOLD: They're multimodal texts. They're very complex.

DANIELLE BINKS: Huge. And then also, the level of creativity involved when the words do not match up with the images-- when somebody is saying something that they clearly do not feel on their face-- is just incredible. The level of emotional intelligence that graphic novels pull out of kids is absolutely beautiful and incredible.

So, verse novels and graphic novels-- obviously, they're all aware of how great graphic novels are. But verse novels, if you don't have any in your collection, you should start looking for them. They're absolutely beautiful as well. But yeah, both of those, I think, are great for those who are struggling with literacy or are just a little bit reluctant readers, which I don't love that term because they're just waiting for the right book to come along.

JADE ARNOLD: Exactly. That's something I always used to say to my students is that you're not 'not a reader', it's just that you haven't found the book that's right for you.

DANIELLE BINKS: Correct.

JADE ARNOLD: And something that both verse novels and graphic novels do is that they really help those students who haven't developed what I like to call reading stamina, that patience to see that story unfold. As you were saying before, the authors in both of these contexts are working with a very limited word repertoire.

And so, for someone who doesn't have that stamina that's built up yet in their reading, it's a lot less for them to take in. And they're gleaning a lot more meaning out of it. And it cuts out some of that stuff-- your exposition and your setting, and a bit more of the dialogue tags and all that kind of stuff that's just extra.

All of those things convey meaning. But if you don't have the stamina yet, those things can all be really overwhelming. So, cutting those things out just makes it much more approachable for someone who doesn't have that stamina yet. And, yeah, absolutely love both those formats for that exact reason.

Speaking about reading, what books are you currently reading? Or what are you excited to dive into next?

DANIELLE BINKS: I am reading Shivaun Plozza's 'Summer of Shipwrecks'.

JADE ARNOLD: Oh, nice.

DANIELLE BINKS: UQP book, which is just beautiful. And it's all about friendship drama as well, which I still feel like that speaks to my soul, as somebody who still feels the kind of slings and arrows or outrageous fortune of the school playground, and just the cold shouldering that I'd sometimes get from my friends. So, I feel like I can very easily tap into that feeling as well. So, Shivaun Plozza's 'Summer of Shipwrecks' is my number-one recommendation at the moment, absolutely.

JADE ARNOLD: Amazing. I love that. And for our final question today, I'm aware that you do school visits in your home state of Victoria. But for our NSW listeners out there, is there ever any chance of a school visit here in NSW?

DANIELLE BINKS: Absolutely. I'm here because I'm doing school visits this week.

JADE ARNOLD: Amazing.

DANIELLE BINKS: Yeah, and also heading off to Brisbane and doing some as well. So, yeah, I'm going around to a whole bunch of different schools in Sydney. My publisher has very kindly organised this trip, but I also have Booked Out Speakers Agency, who I always say to them, if anyone from Sydney wants to send me over there.

And you can also find me on my website and just query if I'm ever in town. And I would absolutely love to come out and speak to any school. It's one of my favourite parts of the job, getting to actually speak to the readers that I write for. I'm very, very privileged that I get to do that. I absolutely love it. And teacher librarians, you know that you own my heart. So, if you ask me to be anywhere, I'll be there with bells on, absolutely.

JADE ARNOLD: Look, as a teacher librarian, I can say having author visits was always one of the highlights of the year and always made such a big impact on students. So, definitely worth checking out if you can organise it.

Danielle, Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you about your books. And I have no doubt that there'll be teacher librarians all across NSW racing out to purchase your titles if they don't have them already or to feature them in book displays or book talks, and many, many more students diving into your books as they work to complete the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge.

DANIELLE BINKS: Thank you so much. Happy reading, everybody.

JADE ARNOLD: Happy reading.

[theme music - Matt Ottley, 'Dance of the Jellyfish']

Thanks for tuning in to 'Between the bookshelves'. This podcast is produced by the Arts Unit of the NSW Department of Education, as part of the 'Listen @ The Arts Unit' series. For more information about our programs, to access our show notes, or to listen to other podcasts, explore our website at artsunit.nsw.edu.au.

For more information about the NSW Premier's Reading challenge, including our booklists, visit premiersreadingchallenge.nsw.edu.au. x

Theme music, 'Dance of the Jellyfish', composed by Matt Ottley. Copyright, Matt Ottley, 2024. Reproduced and communicated with permission. Background music licensed by Envato Elements.

Copyright, State of NSW (Department of Education), 2025.