Listen @ The Arts Unit – Between the bookshelves

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ANNOUNCER: Listen @ The Arts Unit.

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JADE ARNOLD: The Arts Unit recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples and storytellers of this place, now known as Australia. We are grateful for the continuing care of Country, waterways and skies where we listen, read and learn.

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

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 1 of 'Between the bookshelves'. I'm joined today by a very special guest, Yvette Poshoglian. Yvette is the bestselling author of over 50 books for children and young readers, including the 'Ella and Olivia' series, the 'Puppy Diary' books, 'Frankie Fox, Girl Spy' stories, 'My Australian Story: Escape from Cockatoo Island' and 'Dear Greta'. Yvette started her career as an English teacher in South West Sydney and was the Premier's Reading Challenge officer from 2015 to 2016. She now consults on educational projects and works with the Technology 4 Learning team on projects like 'Everyone's an Author'.

Yvette, thank you so much for joining me for our very first episode. How are you today?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Oh, I'm chuffed to be here, Jade. Thank you for having me. First guest; I feel very special.

JADE ARNOLD: I couldn't imagine asking anyone else, so thank you for being available for this. So, Yvette, as you would know, the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge, or the PRC, as we both like to call it, is all about being able to connect children and young adults with stories that they'll fall in love with. One of the ways that we do this is by carefully curating the PRC booklists so that PRC coordinators, who are often teacher librarians or classroom teachers, can feel confident selecting a book for their school library or recommending it to a student.

Having said that, we know that there are thousands of books on the PRC booklists, and we know that all students have really different reading tastes and preferences, so it can be super overwhelming to try and match one of the PRC books with a student. With that in mind, a big part of these podcasts is going to focus on a 'between the bookshelves' pitch, which essentially is an elevator pitch for teacher librarians or PRC coordinators that they can then use to make recommending a title for a student's next read a little bit easier.

Imagine, if you will, a student is standing between the bookshelves in their school, their local library or their bookshop, and they're in the P section, and they see your titles there on the shelves. Maybe they've got that little PRC sticker on the spine. And your job is to help them decide if they want to take your book home.

So, with that in mind, can you give us the 'between the bookshelves' pitch for 'Dear Greta', 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 really enjoy it?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Awesome. Thanks, Jade. What a privilege to be able to pitch a book to the PRC coordinators and to the students. That's just a dream come true. 'Dear Greta' is really a book for ages 8-plus, so I would say readers who are in Year 3 and up.

Our main character, Alice, is in Year 6. I think Year 6 is such a pivotal, cool time for a reader, a student in our public schools. And I just actually really wrote it for a student who is starting to think a little bit about the world around them. They're thinking about what power they might have or what little power they might have.

And it's essentially a story about realising that you, even as one person, can make a change for the better. And the main character, Alice, doesn't really see this in herself at the beginning of the book. But through getting to know not only the people in her class and some of the people she doesn't love in her class and having to work with them, as well as also being forced into some weird situations at home, including her sister, who she hates, things actually start to change. And Year 6 actually ends up being quite a different year to what she started out thinking it would be.

So, it's got lots of ideas jammed into this book, but it also celebrates the power of librarians, because Alice's librarian is an amazing person in her life and really helps her find not only the impetus to write to Greta Thunberg, which is the basis for the book, but also to read a little bit more broadly, maybe think about things in a different way and actually get to start to understand what activism could look like in today's world.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, absolutely. I loved the librarian character in this book, unsurprisingly, being a teacher librarian myself, and I'm sure many other TLs out there would resonate with that.

One of the central messages of this book was, as you said, empowering students that they have the ability to make positive changes for good. And it doesn't just have to be on a global scale, like someone like Greta Thunberg. In 'Dear Greta', Alice manages to find a way to bring her school's Harmony Day celebrations online and even manages to draw attention to the plight of endangered frogs on live television.

So, what was the motivation behind including this message?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: It's such an interesting time to be a young person. You've got more options than ever before to actually have a voice, and even adults know that they have these options now. But I think kids are really embracing new technologies and new publishing platforms. It doesn't necessarily have to be social media but actually understanding that their words can have power and that their actions can have power.

So, that was actually one of the underlying things. And that obviously, Greta Thunberg is just such an incredible figure that we've lived in the past 10 years to watch her literally grow up from being a teenager who had something to say and turning that into a worldwide movement for climate change activism and seeing that young people can have positions at the table to make change. I think her platform is incredible. She certainly didn't start out that way, but she had something to say. She said it through a simple sign and going on strike.

And even that massive approach that Greta took, I think actually is an incredible driver for young people to actually see that even small changes that they make in their own little world can have a big impact as well. And that's what my main character actually discovers is that through doing a project that she actually really doesn't want to do and was late to class for-- and she gets Greta Thunberg. She doesn't even know who she is.

It actually starts to make her really think about the world around her and ask questions that maybe she hadn't asked before about what's possible in her world and also what might need changing or fixing. And yes, Harmony Day is a backdrop, but also endangered wildlife is also part of that. But also understanding her family, especially her dad, because her dad actually has a really interesting past as well.

JADE ARNOLD: Yes, he does. It's such an interesting journey and very inspiring journey that Alice goes on. And I really hope that students who read that can maybe see part of that reflected in their own lives and have a bit of motivation to do something good in their world, even if it's something really small.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Yeah, definitely.

JADE ARNOLD: Alice faces a myriad of challenges in 'Dear Greta', one of which is when her Armenian grandmother comes to stay with her family to recover from a hospital stay. Alice loses her bedroom and her trackpants, of all things, to her grandmother, and she's exiled to the sunroom on an airbed, and is forced to endure salad after salad after salad from her grandma. Despite this, Alice comes to appreciate her presence and even misses her once she moves back out.

What was the inspiration for this? Was there a personal connection in your own life that brought the grandmother character to life?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Jade, you haven't lived till you've had an Armenian grandmother.

[laughter]

JADE ARNOLD: And a couple of salads?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Yeah. Armenians are crazy about salad. They love vegetables in all their forms, especially with lots of olive oil. So, my grandmother, Nene, who is also called Nene in this book, has a very special bond with Alice that Alice doesn't really realise exists until Nene actually comes to live and takes not only her bedroom, but her wardrobe, and takes over her life.

And Alice also realises that Nene actually is quite cool. She's got her own friends. She FaceTimes them from all over the world. They're all living in different parts of the world. They're part of an Armenian diaspora that live all over the world-- and very similar to my grandmother.

In my own childhood, my Armenian grandmother didn't speak a lot of English, and I didn't speak a lot of Armenian, but somehow, we had a great relationship. And even though it was quite a number of years between us, we always could make ourselves understood to each other. And we had a very close bond, just the same as I had with my other grandmother. And so, I really wanted to explore this idea that being forced out of her comfort zone, Alice is actually put in a completely new place to really try and work things out.

And at home, which is normally our safe space, our bedrooms are our favourite place. If we manage to have our own bedroom, that's an amazing thing. But she's pushed out of her bedroom by Nene. And also, her sister is also just a thorn in her side. She's a constant thorn in her side. She's irritating, she's bossy, and they just do not understand each other. But they all kind of have to get along.

And what Alice doesn't realise is that Annie, her sister, is actually going to become one of her biggest helps and biggest supports. And that's also really cool, because sister relationships can be challenging and interesting and also the most rewarding ones you can have if you're lucky enough to have a sister. So, yes, there's lots of personal things, and it's definitely my most personal book because the character is Armenian Australian, just like me. And when I was growing up, there were really not many stories written by people with surnames that looked like mine and characters that reminded me of me.

And also, friendship circles, and my friendship circles at school, everybody came from a different culture, and I really wanted to celebrate that. And all the classrooms that I taught in, my students came from such interesting parts of the world. And when I taught in South West Sydney, I got to learn a lot about different cultures, Pasifika cultures, and I really wanted to include those students and their stories in this book as well.

So, there's a lot to cover, but it is a very personal book. But I've just got to say, I'm definitely not as cool and brave as Alice. And that's why you're a writer, because you can actually make these people and these characters come to life in ways that you just can't do it for yourself. So, it is a very personal book, you're absolutely right.

JADE ARNOLD: It's so lovely to see a book that gives students the chance to see themselves represented in literature, and then also other students to see a window into other people's lives and to really value the diversity that is in Australian culture. And to have that lovely little backdrop of Harmony Day just meshes it all together really beautifully. So, it's a wonderful story with wonderful heart in it.

One of Alice's friends, Anh, is battling with health issues that make it hard for her to attend school a lot of the time. But luckily for Anh, she's able to use a telepresence robot, which is a small robot with an iPad screen that she can drive around her school so she can not only attend her classes but also spend time with her friends during break time and socialise, which I thought was super cool.

Was this inspired by any real-world stories of telepresence robot use in NSW schools or through your work in the Technology 4 Learning team?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Yeah, look, both. Actually, where I'm currently working, I work in a team called Tech Enablement. Our team is called Technology 4 Learning, and I had the chance to work with some incredibly cool, innovative gurus who have been working on new technologies going into our schools. And we're working with incredible teachers who are trialling new things in schools.

And one of these things-- there are many of them now in our NSW public schools called telepresence robots. And they're basically an iPad on wheels that can be manoeuvred by somebody who might be in bed or is not at school or is at home or working from a different part, going to school in a different way. And these robots are really changing things for people who can't be at school.

And what is even cooler about it is that on the other side of the coin, when everybody else is at school, they get a chance to actually really understand the role of the robot. And that they don't actually respond to the robot like it's a piece of equipment. It's actually that person on the screen. Their face is there. And it's just been used in some incredible circumstances, and it gives students who can't make it to school some real freedom to attend school, still have their friends, still go to class, literally wheel down the corridor.

And I just think it's an amazing innovation, and I hope to see a lot more of that happening in our schools. And yeah, there's some amazing things happening out there. And I really wanted to celebrate some of the technology and the support that we know is happening in our schools, particularly for Anh, because she can't get to school. And also, just one of the other side benefits of being an author is Anh is one of my best friends at work. And so, I asked her if it was OK if I could call that character Anh. And she of course said yes.

JADE ARNOLD: Of course. Who wouldn't want a character named after them in a book?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Yeah, it's a nice thing to be able to do.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, for sure. And I just loved how the idea of that technology robot-- as a teacher, your first thought is, 'Like, OK, well, we'll have something over Teams or Zoom' or something like that. But then you're just getting the class content, and those students miss out on those social moments with their friends, and they become really isolated, and school becomes just about learning. And they miss all of those informal opportunities for learning and their interactions for socialisation. And yeah, it just makes it seem so much more about the whole student as opposed to just attending classes.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Yeah, it is. It's about the whole school experience. And that's why what happens to Anh's robot in the book that happens through a terrible accident at school that Alice just feels absolutely sick about-- even though something terrible happens, it is a way for them to both, really-- Alice to really examine what friendship means and how she can maybe be a better friend or have a good conversation with her friend about her life and where she's at. And actually, it's OK, in the end. It actually was a chance, really, to chat about things. And sometimes that can be the best thing to do-- sometimes the hardest thing to do, but sometimes the best.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah. Before we move on to talking about your other books, let's return to our 'between the bookshelves' chat. Let's say that same young reader is standing between the bookshelves, and they've just devoured 'Dear Greta' and is back looking for their next read. Maybe they're after that title that will inspire them to act with courage for positive change, something that focuses on the environment or something that's written in that similar letter style. What book would you suggest that they try next?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: So, there's a few that spring to mind, Jade. There's a couple of new Australian titles that I want to recommend. The first one is called 'The Kindness Project', and it's by the wonderful Deb Abela, who has had a long-standing relationship with the PRC and is just one of the most wonderful people you could see in action talking about books. And this is a really positive, powerful book about how to make change and how to do things together. I thought it was a really special book.

I also really want to recommend a really fun book by Nat Amoore called 'The Power of Positive Pranking'. It's a really fun romp and set in schoolyards that seem really familiar. And again, it's about making positive change in a really fun way, in the way only Nat can do.

And then I've been thinking a lot about some of my favourite books that are maybe written in a letter format, which I will say was a very hard way to write a narrative. Great idea at first, but then once you have to do it, it can be very hard to hold on to that. And I started to think about some books that really had a big impact on me.

And it's not exactly the same, but I would say even reading 'The Diary of a Young Girl' by Anne Frank, which is a diary format book, which is obviously a work of non-fiction, is a very inspirational book that is very timely, and we should be reading. And lots of readers would know that book. And that book still has a powerful hold on me many, many years later.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah. Just a side note-- all the books that we talk about during this podcast will be mentioned in the show notes. So, if you want to find them or figure out what PRC booklist they're on, if they are on a PRC booklist, make sure you check out our show notes.

Next, I'd like to ask you about 'Escape from Cockatoo Island' which also features on the 5 to 6 booklist and is part of the 'My Australian Story' series. Can you give us the 'between the bookshelves' pitch for this story?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: 'Escape from Cockatoo Island' was an obsession of mine to write and research, and it's still one of my favourite things to talk about because it's such a fascinating backdrop for a coming-of-age story, almost similar to the same age group of 'Dear Greta', in that my main character, Olivia, is 11 years old in the year 1879. And this was a really interesting time in Sydney. And a particularly terrible place to be in Sydney at that time was on Cockatoo Island, and it's a story that grabbed me and wouldn't let me go.

I had no intentions of setting out to write a historical novel, but it's actually a look at what was happening to young girls in our society at that time who were locked away for no good reason, apart from the fact that they were considered not very useful to the colony, and their stories-- and actually trying to present some hope that they did get off Cockatoo Island. So, this is very much a colonial story. It's a very particular time in Australian history, in a place that was very remote.

Even though Cockatoo Island, which is in the middle of Sydney Harbour, is actually quite close to the coasts and the other harbour foreshores, it could have just been in the middle of absolutely nowhere because they put kids on this island-- they put adults as well on this island and other prisoners. And they basically just tried to forget that they were there. So, this is a story about agency for young girls and the importance of us understanding what happened to young women in those days and how we must make sure that we never let that happen again.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, absolutely. As we've mentioned, 'Escape from Cockatoo Island' is part of the 'My Australian Story' series. This series currently consists of 34 titles, which are all written by different authors, and they focus on different parts of Australian history after British arrival in 1788.

How do you, as an author, come to write for a series like this? And is it a case of you approaching the publisher, or does the publisher approach you?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Well, I have a very interesting past because before I became a teacher, I actually worked in children's book publishing. And I actually worked for the publisher Scholastic. And so, I had been reading many of these books over the years as they've been published. And Dr Anita Heiss had one. There was one about the bombing of Darwin. There were many things, actually, in my knowledge of Australian history that I didn't know about.

And I read many of these books in this series, which spanned many, many aspects of Australian history. And essentially, I never set out to write one of these books. But what ended up happening was I was actually kayaking. I'm a mad keen kayaker, going across Sydney Harbour every Saturday morning in this very ordinary plastic canoe, which was definitely not built for harbour rowing. But I just had this passion for it.

And one morning, I actually went too far, and I ended up out in the middle of Wareamah which is actually the Aboriginal name for these waters. And it's where the Parramatta River joins the Lane Cove River in the middle of Sydney Harbour and where Cockatoo Island is. And it was actually before the island was open to the public, so that when I got there, it was a kind of desolate place. It still is if you've been there. It's a very unusual place, full of slipways for boat building and old colonial buildings and sheer rock faces and vegetation and a very unusual sandstone quadrangle with these incredible convict-built outhouses in the middle of this island at one end.

And for some reason, I was drawn upwards to this quadrangle area. And I soon found this one particular feature which had the word Biloela on it. And I did not even how to pronounce that word for a long time. I called it 'Bill-oh-la'. I actually had never heard the word until I started doing some research.

Anyway, I knew from the moment I set foot on the island there was something to tell here. There was something to research. There was something to find out what had happened here. So, in a way, I think the story found me. It wasn't any other way that it happened than that.

And then I went and literally got the energy back to paddle back home, got back in my kayak, went back home, started looking into what had happened on Cockatoo Island. There are many, many layers of history on Cockatoo Island. And I just felt very convinced there was a story to tell.

And the story that I wanted to tell was about the Biloela Industrial and Girls Reformatory School, which was established in the late 19th century. And essentially, it was something that they trialled with orphans and young wayward women, as they were called. Women they didn't know what-- girls, they weren't women always.

They didn't know what to do with them, and they put them in this place. And they made them live in very harsh conditions and live among each other, and it was not a great idea. So, the setting was there. It's a very unusual place, yet right in the middle of the city. Yet people didn't really know about it. And that's the story that took hold.

And I think it must have been a few weeks later, I rang the publisher. And I said, 'There's a story here. Do you want to come out for a visit?' And at the time, I think there was one ferry that used to go there. And they came out, and she's like, 'I feel tingles running up my spine.' And that's how the story started. And she's like, 'Absolutely, we've got to do this.'

JADE ARNOLD: That's amazing.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: It actually was just one of those things that I feel convinced that the story found me and not the other way around.

JADE ARNOLD: What a cool story. I love that. How different was the writing process for 'Escape from Cockatoo Island', given that it was much more historically based? I imagine there was a lot more research involved. So, did this influence your writing process?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Definitely. And you know what? This was probably the longest novel that I'd tackled at that stage. I was still very new to writing full-length manuscripts. And I think that understanding the timeline of the history and what happened to the girls on the island were really good signposts for how to tell the story.

And with each book, it's different. Sometimes you know exactly how it's going to work out. Sometimes you might start off really well. And then for this book, I knew how I wanted it to start, and I actually knew how I wanted it to end. I had to do a lot of research to make sure that that was plausible. And then it was the middle bit that actually was the last chunk to fall into place.

But always when you're trying to tell a historical story, you have to be aware of the facts but also have to have a bit of courage or fearlessness to step into owning your character and putting them in a place that potentially was real. We'll never really know what it was like, but it does have to be realistic. And I knew that it was essential that at the end of this story, we had something positive happen because there were very many cases of girls on this island where there weren't positive things that happened to them.

And that's why the title is called 'Escape from Cockatoo Island' because our main character-- and actually another character in the book-- they escape from Cockatoo Island in the most incredible way. And there are recorded entries of some people getting off Cockatoo Island, but they were not necessarily children. And there are some astonishing things that I found out during the research period. But it took me a good, long period, Jade. It took me more than a couple of years to research and get it right.

JADE ARNOLD: That sounds intense, but it also sounds like a lovely fusion between, I guess, imagination and historical facts, and making those 2 mesh seamlessly together.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Yes. It was absolutely a crazy thing to try and do, but I'm glad I did it.

JADE ARNOLD: Let's return again to our 'between the bookshelves' chat. Our voracious reader has now finished 'Escape from Cockatoo Island' and is searching for their next read.

What would you suggest that they try next?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: There are so many in that series that I think students would love, and I'll recommend a couple. There's 'The Bombing of Darwin' by Alan Tucker, and that's also in the 'My Australian Story' series. And the other one that had a big impact on me was called 'Who Am I? The Diary of Mary Talence', and that's by Dr Anita Heiss.

And that's a really interesting story as well. It's a First Nations story perspective on the series that I actually personally learned a lot through that particular book. And I also had the privilege of meeting Anita and talking to her about that book when it came out. So, I'd recommend starting with those 2, but there's plenty in the series.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, so much to dive into. But it's good to know that that's a really good dive-in point for readers who really liked that book.

For our next 'between the bookshelves' pitch, let's move on to a series that our primary school teacher librarians would probably be very familiar with, the 'Ella and Olivia' series. And they feature on the K to 2 booklist. And what are these books about? And who do you think would enjoy them?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: All right. So, Jade, there's a real sister thread running through here. Ella and Olivia-- Ella is 7 years old; Olivia is 5 and 1/2. They're frozen in time. Their little brother Max is 2. He's still learning to talk 38 books later, and that's exactly where we like to keep our little brothers.

[laughter]

They're there at the side of the action. But this is really the sisters' story. So, these books really have simple text, active voice. They're designed for beginning readers to develop confidence in reading by themselves. I get lots and lots of letters from readers and their parents saying, 'Hey, we've just finished this one,' or 'We love this one and then we've put this one down and then we've gone on to the next one.'

So, that's why there's also so many spinoff series of 'Ella and Olivia' because there's something for every age group, all the way down to the 'Meet Ella' series, all the way up to 'Ella at Eden' when she's in high school. And there's something for everyone in these characters, and they're just universally loved. So, writing chapter books for this age, I often put myself back in the mindset of being a kid.

And my little sister, who is kind of the Olivia in this series-- and it's the adventures they get up to, but they kind of can't do things without each other. In the first few 'Ella and Olivia's, they were mainly Ella's stories, but then I was like, no, Olivia needs to find her voice. And so, you'll find now in the stories that both sisters have to do things together to take the story forward and also to find a resolution to whatever crazy problem has befallen them in this particular story.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, I love that. Thank you for sharing. I imagine it's actually kind of tricky to write a chapter book for the 5 to 7-year-old age group. So many of the books targeted at this age group are actually picture books, and obviously they rely very heavily on the interplay with the images to be able to create meaning and to draw readers in. So, what considerations do you need to make when you're writing a chapter book for this age group?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Well, look, the amazing thing is that my illustrator, Danielle McDonald, and I have done so many books together now that we almost-- when I write them, I do have considerations for where the illustrations are going to go, and I know almost instinctively how she's going to depict that. But when you're a writer, you're really lucky because you have an editor or a publisher in the middle of this process that helps you organise the story into how it's going to be delivered through the words and through the images.

So, with these books, they're 2,500 words long. Each book is 2,500 words long with five 500-word chapters. And so, you know that something's got to happen in each of those chapters, rising up to the tension, almost starting from the very beginning of the story. And then it has to be resolved by the end of the book.

And I would say that Danielle and I are fairly in sync. And she knows she's captured the essence of the characters because she brought them to life. When I think of them now, they're the illustrations. So, she's brought them to life, and she's an absolute master.

And she's also a very busy lady because there's just so many books to illustrate in this series. So, yeah, she's extremely busy. But even though we don't live in the same city, we don't see each other a lot, we're always in sync with what we're doing. And she's just brilliant.

JADE ARNOLD: Awesome. So, it sounds like very much key structure and a good illustrator makes it easy to write for this age group.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Well, I mean, you're also very lucky. You have wonderful publishers in the middle of it all that make it happen.

JADE ARNOLD: Of course. So, let's assume our teacher librarian or PRC coordinator is standing between the bookshelves with our young reader, and they've absolutely devoured the 'Ella and Olivia' series. What books do you think they should move on to next?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: There's a few different series that I love that are a little bit different to 'Ella and Olivia'. Obviously, there's the 'Billie B Brown' series, which everybody loves and knows. And Sally Rippin, our Children's Laureate, is incredible. I really love those books because they have a little bit of mystery in them as well.

I also love the 'Ratbag' series from Tim Harris. If you want something hilarious, read Tim's books. They're just awesome. And I would also recommend 'Frog Squad' by Kate and Jol Temple.

JADE ARNOLD: I love 'Frog Squad'.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: They're so fun.

JADE ARNOLD: They're so funny.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: And not just because I love frogs, but they're so funny. And they're just very funny-- just weird and wonderful, but hilarious. And they just make me laugh out loud. So, there's just a few series.

And actually, I do want to give a little mention to a series because I love dogs, and I know lots of people love dogs. There's a series called 'Willa and Woof' by Jacqueline Harvey, and I would recommend those too.

JADE ARNOLD: Yes, such fantastic recommendations there. And I feel very confident that most, if not all, of those are on the PRC booklists, but they will be confirmed in the show notes. It's so lovely to chat about your books and hear your wonderful recommendations, Yvette.

I'd love now to draw on your experience as a prior Premier's Reading Challenge officer. I'm going to guess that we would have very similar answers for the questions that I'm going to ask you, but you've got such a unique perspective on this because you've run the program, you've written a number of books yourself, and you've taught in the NSW public education system.

So, first of all, why do you think the PRC is an important program both for students and for schools?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Oh, Jade. Well, you know this all too well because you're the officer and you know how wonderful this job is. It's just a real privilege to be in that position. And the Reading Challenge is an incredible program that supports wide reading and supports literacy in our schools. And there are many schools around Australia that do different versions of reading challenges.

But the PRC in NSW is just-- we know it's epic. It's an epic program, and so many students participate in it. And whether the goal is to read as many books as you can, whether the goal is to get a medal or you're aiming for a certificate, it really doesn't matter. The whole idea of it is to read more books and try different books to what you maybe normally would read.

And that's where the roles of our wonderful teachers and teacher librarians come in, because the PRC guides and your role in working with committees to choose the books that go onto the lists is an essential part of making that happen for students and making it easier for them to find these books and to branch out. And as you know, there are thousands of books published every single month in Australia and overseas.

And the fact that you're able to read them and review them and help those choices become easier for younger readers is massive. And to help kids recognise that reading can be powerful by having the signposts along the way and the markers of success is really, really important. And I think anybody that loves reading and is willing to step out of what they normally read and try something new, that can be a really simple act of discovering more joy in your life.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, absolutely. The memories that I have the most fondness for when I was a high school teacher librarian was the students who would come in and say, I don't read books at all. I haven't read a book since Year 6 when we were forced to-- and getting them to read 5 of their choice books. And for them, that was a huge accomplishment for them.

And it's not always about completing the PRC. It's about taking the time to read and hopefully enjoy those books and keep searching for the types of books that you like or try something new and really fall in love with a book and enjoy that process of reading. So, definitely everything that you said there really resonates. And as you said, I feel so phenomenally lucky to be able to follow in your footsteps and to run this program. It's the best. And then I get to sit here and talk to you on a podcast. How great.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: It's the new iteration of the PRC. How cool? Podcasting wasn't around 10 years ago, really.

JADE ARNOLD: Right? Yeah.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: And it's awesome to see the PRC heading in this direction, and I absolutely can't wait to see who's next on your interview list.

JADE ARNOLD: Thank you. Given your firsthand experience with the program, what advice would you give to a teacher librarian or to a school planning on getting started for the very first time with the PRC?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Gosh, there's so much advice. It is a big program to run, and it can be a busy thing to run at your school. I think the best thing that I would suggest is to reach out to your network of TLs. Your network will help you and give you some feedback on the experience of running the PRC.

And they can always write in and actually get real support from you and your team as well. And I think, don't be afraid. It's actually super rewarding, and there are plenty of people out there who can help you actually work with the program and log the books and work with the students. It doesn't have to be something you tackle entirely on your own.

JADE ARNOLD: And there's no right or wrong way to do it, either. Every school that I have spoken to runs it slightly differently and makes it work for their particular school context. So, I always try and give schools that advice is that you've got to choose what's going to work best for you and also what's going to be sustainable that you can keep up. So, it might not be as crazy and over the top as the school next door, but that doesn't matter because you're still giving students that opportunity in a way that works for your school context.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Yeah, definitely.

JADE ARNOLD: On a similar note, what words of wisdom would you like to share with school coordinators who've been running the program for a number of years?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Oh, I'd personally just love to say thank you so much for doing that.

JADE ARNOLD: I agree, seconded.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Because every time I step into the library now as an author, I see the evidence. I'm in libraries where it's celebrated and it's visible. And even from a really simple display that you might have or the bookshelf stickers that you're using or information that you're working on giving your students, it works. It's amazing.

And I just want to say a big thank you because it makes my appearance in a library just so much more valuable to a student who's doing the PRC. They may have read some of my books. They may have read none of them. That's fine. It's actually the collective act of reading and being part of something together which is actually really exciting.

And I know that when I was starting out in the role a long time ago, Jade, I did all of these deep dives into wondering how this program came to light. And it was through some really inventive, clever people who had actually gone out and looked internationally at what was helping literacy in schools around the world. And they cherry-picked the best of all the programs occurring around the world. There were some amazing models that they used, and I think what we've done in NSW is turned it into our own thing.

And it's got to be definitely one of the biggest in the world. So, yeah, I just want to say thank you very much to everybody who supports the program as a teacher, as a writer, and as somebody who did run it once upon a time, Jade. But I'm just loving what you're doing with the program.

JADE ARNOLD: Thank you. You're absolutely correct. Without all of our amazing school coordinators, we wouldn't have the, I think, 436,000 students doing the PRC every year. It's insane.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: It's huge.

JADE ARNOLD: It's mind-boggling to think about that number of students, but also so exciting to think about the fact that this little-- it feels like a little program on this end.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: It's massive.

JADE ARNOLD: But it's not.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: It's not, Jade. It's huge!

JADE ARNOLD: This program is able to reach so many students and hopefully spark that joy for reading and support their literacy development in such an enjoyable way.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: When I meet adults who are like, I did the Reading Challenge. I love the Reading Challenge. I've still got my medal. And I'm like, good on you. Well done.

JADE ARNOLD: I love those stories.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: I love it, too.

JADE ARNOLD: Now, I imagine you have a pretty good understanding of the Australian children's literature world. With that in mind, if you had any words of wisdom to share with teacher librarians in NSW about what types of books to keep an eye out for when developing their library's collection, what would they be?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Well, there are just so many incredible books coming out every month, from fiction to non-fiction to everything in between. I absolutely love seeing even what's coming out in new formats-- so much to choose from. Obviously, I'm in this incredible world where I get to go to lots of book launches and lots of my friends are releasing things all the time. But it's really interesting to see, category-wise, what people and what kids are reading today.

For instance, poetry and verse novels are fascinating, and I'm so in awe of the people that write them. And like everything from Pip Harry's book 'The Longest Wave' to Kirli Saunders' book 'Bindi', they're, for me, some of the most fascinating new styles of books. I just absolutely love reading them, and they're incredible to read out loud. I think it's just incredible to see young readers' responses to those books as well.

I think in terms of our picture books that particularly we make in Australia, there are so many incredible picture books coming out all the time. And there's a couple that I absolutely love. A friend of mine, an illustrator, Max Hamilton, she's got some beautiful Australian books. I think my favourite one that she's had out recently is called 'Our Home'. And it's just a look at the different styles of home and what we can call home in Australia. And it makes you think about what home is and what home can be.

So, teacher librarians, you get to see what's out there. You're really well placed to see what your students are reading, what they love. Graphic novels are obviously a huge part of it. There's so much movement in the graphic novel world. Lots of people I know are working on series that we'll be starting to see coming out really soon. So, I think there're a few things that I'm quite excited by.

JADE ARNOLD: Amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Now, I feel like an essential question for a podcast where we talk about books is, what are you currently reading? Or what are you excited to dive into next?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Well, I've just finished reading a great new book called 'Neeka and the Missing Key' by Tina Strachan, and it's just a lovely adventure set in a zoo. It's for, I would say, readers 7 or 8-plus, and it's just a good, old-fashioned adventure by somebody who knows a lot about this world. And it's got gorgeous illustrations in it. I really enjoyed that book.

What am I excited to dive into next? Well, there are a few different friends, as I alluded to, that are working on various graphic novel series, which I can't reveal too much about, but they're hard at work on them. And I can't wait for them to come out. But there's also a few new additions to the 'Ella and Olivia' multiverse that are coming out this year.

So, there is another spinoff series that's coming out that I've been working on with Danielle McDonald again, which will be heading out. And there's a new space that I've been exploring, which is the world of phonics readers with Ella. And that series is called 'Ella's World', too. So, they're what I'm working on, and there's some thoughts on what I'm looking forward to.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah. Well, hopefully in the next 6 to 12 months, we'll have a bit more of an idea of that. And we'll have to check back in, and maybe they'll find their way onto the PRC booklists. I hope so-- fingers crossed.

One of the projects you've worked on while part of the Technology 4 Learning team has been the 'Everyone's an Author' resource. Can you tell us where we can find this resource, and what teachers and students can expect to get out of it?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Well, this was a really fun one to work on, I can't lie. It involved a lot of wonderful authors from Australia who basically decided to share some wisdom with students. You can find it online. All you have to do is google 'Everyone's an Author', and you'll find it. It's pretty easy, but it's got so many cool layers to it.

So, there's a video from 9 different authors who basically talk about an aspect of writing. I think the one that I talk about is about building your characters and developing your characters. Tim Harris, who I mentioned before, he talks a lot about dialogue. Jackie French talks a lot about place. Kirli Saunders talks a lot about landscape and imagery and how she works that into her poetry and her writing.

And the cool thing is there's a fun video that's a few minutes long that you can watch, and then there are a whole bunch of resources to actually get started with your writing. I know that we're revamping them at the moment, and they're available. And you can easily find them and just anyone in Australia can find them. So, they're available on the Technology 4 Learning website or if you just google it.

JADE ARNOLD: That's so awesome. And I think definitely such a valuable resource for teacher librarians or English teachers or any teacher who's trying to boost their students' writing ability and confidence. But also, what a great resource to work with your students and then give them the opportunity to go and read those authors' works as part of the Premier's Reading Challenge, where they can see those features in those authors' writings and see how intentional authors are with what they're saying and what it is that makes one of those stories that really stick with us. So, what a fantastic read.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: I learned heaps.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: I learned heaps. It was great because in the video, Jackie is standing in a dry creek bed looking around at the bush, as only Jackie French could do.

JADE ARNOLD: Absolutely.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: And she's talking about place and how it impacts on her writing. And she's just a powerhouse, so any tips she can give me is a massive amount of help.

JADE ARNOLD: Absolutely. While we're on the topic of authors, my last question for you is about author visits. Do you ever visit schools in NSW? And if so, how can teachers get in touch with you?

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: I definitely do. You can just email me through my website. I haven't done them for a while, but this year I'm really excited to get back into schools, so just drop me a line.

JADE ARNOLD: That's really exciting. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Yvette. It has been an absolute pleasure talking to you about your books, about the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge, and about your work with the T4L team. And I am confident that this chat has inspired PRC coordinators all across NSW, both with how to run the PRC and how to talk about your books with our aspiring readers.

YVETTE POSHOGLIAN: Oh, thank you so much, Jade. And congratulations on a wonderful program that just, under your custodianship, is just going from strength to strength. Thanks for having me.

JADE ARNOLD: Thank you, Yvette.

[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.au.

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.

[intro music]

ANNOUNCER: Listen @ The Arts Unit.

[didgeridoo playing]

JADE ARNOLD: The Arts Unit recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples and storytellers of this place, now known as Australia. We are grateful for the continuing care of Country, waterways and skies where we listen, read and learn.

From here on the lands of the Gadigal and Wangal peoples of the Eora nation, and from wherever you are listening, we respect the Elders of the past and present and extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening.

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

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.

[page turning]

Welcome to episode 2 of 'Between the bookshelves'. I'm joined today by the incredibly talented Matt Ottley, who's an artist, illustrator and composer. Matt has more than 40 picture books to his name, and a number of these, including 'Stickboy', 'How to Make a Bird', 'The Incredible Freedom Machines', 'Crusts', 'Suri's Wall' and much more feature on our PRC booklists ranging from the K to 2 to the 7 to 9 booklist.

Matthew also created the artwork for the 2025 Premier's Reading Challenge, titled 'Dance of the Jellyfish', and composed a piece of music by the same name, which you just heard in our podcast introduction.

Matt, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?

MATT OTTLEY: Thank you, Jade. I'm very well, thank you.

JADE ARNOLD: That's lovely to hear. Now, Matt, you and I have had a massive day today at the Arts Unit in Lewisham. We've just come off the back of recording your composition, which was performed by our Arts Unit ensemble students. And I have so many questions to ask you about the musical process and the interconnection between art and music. But before we get there, I'd like to chat with you about some of your most recent picture books now that the Premier's Reading Challenge is open to students.

Your most recent release is 'Stickboy', which was written by Rebecca Young and illustrated by yourself. And it features on the 5 to 6 booklist. If we were to imagine a student standing between the bookshelves looking for a picture book to read, what would you say to them to convince them to pick up this book?

MATT OTTLEY: Wow, that's a great question.

JADE ARNOLD: And a long one, too.

[laughter]

MATT OTTLEY: I guess, depending on the student, I'd let them know that this was, or is, a fabulous story that, in a very gentle way, is about some really important issues facing the world. But it does it in the way Rebecca Young can do with her writing, does it in a way that is not didactic, doesn't feel you're leaving at all distressed, and basically inspires you to think about what it's about and to think about the possibilities, because she is brilliant at illuminating the potential of human beings to do wonderful things.

And ultimately, that's what this story is about. It's about someone who has the most extraordinary power that's hidden within them. And it's a power that the hero of the story doesn't even realise he's got until he discovers it. And it's a power that can save everyone around him.

JADE ARNOLD: I think that's such a beautiful description. And there's that beautiful relationship between your illustration and Rebecca Young's writing style, where it's layered, and you can take that surface story out of it. But then it really encourages you to reread and stop and think about the images and the connection with the words. And there's so much to take out of that book. And the illustrations are stunning. So, that's a wonderful description. And I hope many students pick that up.

Some of your most widely read books on the PRC booklists are 'Parachute', written by Danny Parker, 'Teacup', written by Rebecca Young and 'Luke's Way of Looking', written by Nadia Wheatley, with a combined 8,000 students adding these books to their reading logs in 2024 alone. Why do you think these books are so popular and still appeal to readers, despite them being published several years ago?

MATT OTTLEY: Well, if I can start with 'Luke's Way of Looking', it's because it is a timeless story about creativity and about finding one's own sense of place in the world. And again, Nadia did what Rebecca does with that text. She did it in such a beautifully gentle way. It's a story about the ludicrousness of judgement and how all of us can shine, given the right kind of understanding of those around us.

There's a scene at the end of the book where Luke's shadow shows that he has wings. He doesn't have wings in himself, but his shadow makes him appear that he has wings. And the wings are actually the shadow of the teacher, who up till that point has been extremely judgmental and negative towards him. But he's finally been able to see that that is not the way to approach this boy. And so, it's a really powerful message about looking deeper, about not judging and about empathy, about compassion.

And I suppose that's what all of those stories are. Certainly, Rebecca's story is about how important it is for each of us to find our place in the world. And it does so in such a lyrical and poetic way, but underneath that, it's a very poignant story about refugees and asylum seekers. A lot of people do actually miss that point, interestingly enough. But that's why it's such a successful book.

And Danny's writing, it's eternal. It is just beautiful and poetic. And it really gets to the heart of what's important to the life of a young child.

You know, so, 'Parachute' is about a young boy who carries a parachute everywhere with him, just in case he's going to need it. And that is such a silly idea in itself, but it's extraordinarily powerful. Well, and it is powerful, but because of its flippancy. Danny is a master of that.

JADE ARNOLD: Mhm, absolutely. I remember 'Luke's Way of Looking' fondly as an English teacher. It was a text that we used to teach visual literacy to high school students. And it was always such a fantastic text to draw them in with the different styles of illustration and how you change from that real line-drawing style with very dark colours, to then juxtapose that with the colour and the imagination and the vibrancy of Luke's illustrations.

And I think the thing that always stood out to me as a teacher is that message of how this book really hammers home this idea to students that often people will think in different ways, and that can often lead to judgement. But if we can celebrate that and nurture that, that's where creativity lives, and that's where all these different beautiful perspectives come from. And that's key to unlocking creativity and growth within ourselves. So, absolutely fantastic book for teaching visual literacy to high school students. But I think there's a lot of potential in all those books that we've just spoken about to explore those types of ideas.

You have written so many books that it's just not possible for us to talk about each and every one of them on a single podcast. But can I ask you, which book, or if you can't pick one, a few books that you really enjoyed working on the most, or which book is the most special to you?

MATT OTTLEY: Well, they're all special. I've been in the privileged position of being able to choose very carefully the books that I've illustrated. And so, I've only ever chosen works that really speak to me. But if I had to select some, I suppose the first would be a book called 'Mrs Millie's Painting', which is one of my own texts.

But it's about an elderly lady who has an adventure in the top of a tree. And really, it came from my own childhood. I was brought up in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. And I used to build cubby houses up in the rainforest canopy. And there were a couple of stands of trees in which the canopy and the layers of creepers over them were so thick you could almost wade across the top. And that's where that idea came from. So, that's very special to me.

Rebecca's books, 'Teacup' and 'Stickboy', are among 2 of my favourites. And that is because Rebecca's-- the light in her work, in her words allows me to explore darkness in the illustrations in a way that just gives extraordinary dimension and depth to her work, I think.

Similarly, 'How to Make a Bird', Meg McKinlay's text, is one of my favourites. That, to me, is an example of a perfect picture book text. It speaks to so many different age groups. It speaks to young kids who have no idea what it's about. And it was an opportunity for me to explore a state of meditation, because that's what it is. It's a meditation on letting go and on creativity.

I suppose 2 of the books that come from really deep within me are 'Requiem for a Beast', which is a work for young adults, because that's based on some of my own experiences working as a stockman on cattle stations when I was a teenager and a young adult, and most recently, 'Tree of Ecstasy and Unbearable Sadness', because that is about my own journey through mental illness. So, that book particularly is the most profound statement that I have yet made to the world, I think, partly as well because I was given the opportunity to explore a very large musical work, writing a very large musical work to go with it. So, yeah, if I had to choose, they would be the books that resonate most deeply with me.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, absolutely. I would say, probably 'book' is not the best way to explain those 2 works. They're more experiences, because there's, for both of them, an orchestral piece of music that accompanies both of them that really enhances the reading experience. So, it's not just a single mode of experiencing those texts.

Now, I think you touched a little bit on your answer to this in the start of that last question, but what I'd like to ask is, how do you work with the author to bring these stories to life? Are you given the story and given creative freedom? Does the author provide you with some guidance, or is that process different depending on which author you're working with? And I'm assuming you're able to be a little bit picky with who you're working with.

MATT OTTLEY: Yeah, well, it does depend largely on the author. It also depends on the publisher. And every experience has been different. I should say up front, most publishers don't like authors and illustrators talking with each other.

JADE ARNOLD: Right, OK. That's really interesting.

MATT OTTLEY: They prefer the editor to be the conduit for any kind of discussion. But that just flat out doesn't work for me. So, the only author that I haven't had a close collaboration with during the working process was John Marsden in 'Home and Away'. And that's probably largely because of-- this is going to sound-- it's not meant to sound terrible in terms of the other authors, but John had such trust in my work.

He basically said, 'No, I will be happy with whatever you do, and I don't want to interfere.' So, I was left to do whatever I wanted to do. Now that, in terms of that text, was-- I don't want to say it was a relatively easy job, but it wasn't difficult, because there were so many ways that I could approach that text.

But usually what happens, and certainly this is what has happened with Danny Parker, because Danny and I are really good friends, we totally ignored the publisher and had plenty of cups of tea and chats over the work. And we really workshopped my illustration ideas, which then influenced changes that he would make in the text. And we'd get everything ironed out. Then he would take the text back to the editor and say, 'Look, this is my latest thinking. Could you just tell Matt about this?'

And so, the editor would duly contact me and say, 'What do you think?' And I'd go, 'Oh, I love that. Yeah, no, this is going to be great to work with.' And so, we kind of controlled the process.

JADE ARNOLD: Very under the table, though.

MATT OTTLEY: Very under the table, right? And there was just a brilliant working collaboration-- or collaborations, they were. With Kirli Saunders, it was kind of similar. She didn't change her text much, but we certainly talked a lot about what the book was going to be about visually.

I had plenty of chats with Meg McKinlay. The text, I didn't feel that anything from an illustrator's perspective needed to be changed with the text. It's a beautiful piece of poetry. So, it was more about me asking her about the philosophical background to the text, the influences of Japanese culture in it, and then how I reflected on that and how I could make some of those ideas my own.

So, we had plenty of discussions about that. And that's the way I prefer to work. I prefer to work closely with an author.

Having said that, I'm not working with authors anymore apart from my partner Tina, because we're a creative team. So, we have books planned together. But certainly, outside collaborations are a thing of the past for me now. I'm very proud of all the books I've done. But it's really going to be mine and our own work from here on in.

JADE ARNOLD: That's really exciting. Are you able to give us any sneak peeks about what is coming up? Or is that all very under wraps for now?

MATT OTTLEY: No, not necessarily. I mean, not under wraps. It's mostly focusing on this initiative that I started about 10 years ago, called The Sound of Picture Books. So, one of the new books coming up that we will be performing later this year is the second book in Tina's 'Monkey's Great Adventures' series, in which she takes knitted characters that her mum makes.

We either travel the world or domestically here in Australia, and Tina sets Monkey up in all of these situations and photographs him and creates these stories around the photographs. And then I write music. And so, we'll be performing the new Monkey book, which hasn't been published yet. But it's called 'The Messy Bath Monster'.

JADE ARNOLD: That's really exciting to hear. Thank you for sharing the title with us.

MATT OTTLEY: That's OK. We will also be performing 'Stickboy' this year as well. But I've got 3 new picture books, which we will either publish ourselves or I will publish via an international publisher, largely probably for an international market. And they're sort of in very early development stage, so, I probably won't talk about those at this stage.

JADE ARNOLD: Still, it's very exciting to hear that there's still plenty of creative things to come out of your brain, which is going to be really exciting to look forward to. There are often a lot of reoccurring or interrelated themes in a lot of your works, which, as an educator, makes them so incredibly rich to dive into and explore with students. In 'Stickboy', we follow an outcast who's been shunned by society.

'Incredible Freedom Machines', we have a girl seeking freedom and imagination in a world constricted by boundaries. And in 'Sarah and the Steep Slope', Sarah is confronted by a slope outside of her house that could represent anxiety, fear or depression.

Has this been a conscious decision, either on your behalf or on the authors who seek you out as an illustrator?

MATT OTTLEY: Great question. It's a little bit of both, and in some cases accidental. So, in 'Home and Away', I was given that text by my editor, who said, 'Would you like to illustrate this?' And as soon as I read it, it hit me in the solar plexus. And I have to admit, I was not really engaged with the refugee and asylum seeker issue much. But it turned that whole-- it sounds like an odd thing to say-- but turned that whole world on for me. And I became very much an advocate and very involved in asylum seeker support networks.

And of course, that placed me in the right position to fall in love with Rebecca Young's 'Teacup' story, because it was about an issue I had grown to become very passionate about. For Danny's books, he showed me a few different texts. And I said, 'Yep, I'd love to work on that one,' 'Parachute' being one. And again, that was because-- I guess not necessarily because of the themes the book's about, because he writes on a lot of different themes, but the way in which he expressed those themes, in such a gentle and almost whimsical and, at times, poignant way.

For a book like 'The Incredible Freedom Machines', the themes in that book kind of came about accidentally, because Kirli, who has become a really good mate of Tina's and mine, originally wrote that text as like a love poem to her motorcycle, because it was the thing at a certain time in her life that gave her a sense of freedom and escape and she could blow air through her lungs and see lots of country. And it was thinking time for her.

But because I have the condition of synaesthesia, motorcycles don't sit easily in my consciousness, because it's generally a particular sound that can actually be quite painful. So, I said to Kirli, 'I really don't want to do a book about motorcycles.' And she said, 'Well, whatever you do it about, can you at least have, if you create a freedom machine, have red on it somewhere?' because her Ducati was red. So, I said, 'OK, fine.'

I was listening to a song by the Moody Blues that has come from the '70s, I think, called 'Thinking is the Best Way to Travel'. And as I was listening to it, I had the idea, 'No, actually, I think reading is the best way to travel because it can take you absolutely anywhere.' And then it just dropped into my head, that is what the 'Freedom Machines' is going to be about. It's going to be about literature, about reading. A book is the ultimate freedom machine.

So, that led to me creating the environment in which the girl lived, because I thought-- I've heard so many inspiring stories about literature, about culture, about music, giving children from slums-- so, I've just recently read about a symphony orchestra in Venezuela that takes children from areas where they're vulnerable to the drug cartels and lives of petty crime, and teaches them how to play musical instruments.

And they all play in this orchestra. But what they've found is-- and it's spread, so, I think that it's touched the lives of well over 30,000 children there now. And the levels of drug and alcohol use have all dropped within those particular families, a really powerful indication of the power of culture.

But I think, particularly, if we're talking about literature, particularly about literature. So, it was important for me that the girl was in a place that is obviously not economically affluent, and whether she ever leaves the place-- she might love it there, doesn't want to leave, but literature will give her the freedom to think her way into wherever she wants to be in the world.

JADE ARNOLD: You've touched on so many things that will resonate with teacher librarians and just lovers of literature there, talking about how reading can often be a pathway to developing empathy, where you're talking about how the power of a story is what opened your eyes to the refugee crisis and the plight of that. And I personally remember a book called 'Because of You', by Pip Harry, which is about homelessness. And I can identify that as being a turning point in my perception of homelessness and how I interacted with people who are experiencing homelessness.

And absolutely, such a fundamental part of being human is just that ability to empathise through story, but then, also, to have narrative as a form of escape and freedom, but, also, a pathway to something brighter and better than we could have imagined without access to that. So, very, very resonant with myself and with teacher librarians. So, thank you for sharing that.

You have a lot of diversity in your artistic style. Your style varies from high realism to surrealism to your trademark twig-limbed characters and sketch-style drawings. How do you decide what kind of look and feel a book is going to have?

MATT OTTLEY: It's entirely what intuitively I feel the story needs.

JADE ARNOLD: It's that artistic brain ticking into overdrive?

MATT OTTLEY: Yeah, just sort of working intuitively. So, you've probably noticed that I often combined that sort of very cartoony twig-limbed, which I love that expression, character look with either a very painterly or sometimes realistic background style.

So, I do combine styles as well. And again, it's entirely what the story needs. A story like 'Sarah and the Steep Slope' is-- the backgrounds are relatively stylised and cartoony as well as the characters. But that's because I just felt that was the best way to present the idea of the slope in the story without it being threatening, but at the same time letting us know that it is something huge in this little girl's life.

JADE ARNOLD: Yeah, there's a lot of colour and patterns in that slope that make it very fun to look at. And obviously, when you've got younger readers experiencing that, you don't want them to feel overwhelmed or threatened by those images. But there's still very much that sense of isolation caused by that slope. And I think that artistic style carries that really well.

So, I recently learned that you're red-green colourblind, and you also mentioned that you have synaesthesia. How does that influence your art?

MATT OTTLEY: Well, the red-green colour blindness kind of doesn't, except that I do have to have work checked before I send it off. I did send a painting of Mrs Millie off while that book was being produced, and apparently, she had green skin.

JADE ARNOLD: [laughs]

MATT OTTLEY: So, I do make mistakes. But I think it's also kind of given me a freedom as well, in that if it looks right, it must be OK. And it's my sense of aesthetic against sort of everyone else's when they're telling me it's wrong. And obviously, the colour of a person's skin, from whatever part of the world they are, has to be recognisable as their skin colour, otherwise it probably looks a bit surreal.

But when it comes to landscapes and the colours of other objects and images, it can often probably illuminate thematic material or moods that other people pick up on that, had the work been constrained by a very natural, realistic colour scheme, it just might not have happened. And one of my creative artistic heroes is Ludwig van Beethoven. And just about everything that we know of his that is very popular, he wrote while he was stone deaf. So, if he can do that without being able to hear, then I can throw colour around without being able to see a very small part of that spectrum.

JADE ARNOLD: That's so interesting. And as you were talking about that story, I just feel like Luke's way of looking, coming back into that, and there's a level of-- well, at least maybe I'm pushing that there, but I feel like there's a level of you in the character of Luke, who just has a very particular way of seeing things. And that leads to a very different sense of art. But there's so much beauty in that. So, that's so interesting.

We've kind of touched on this a little earlier as well, but there's often an assumption that picture books are solely for younger readers. But you have a number of books that are on the 5 to 6 and 7 to 9 booklists, as well as books that are aimed at adults and young adults. What do you think makes your books, and picture books in general, so appealing to older readers or just that art form in general?

MATT OTTLEY: Well, I suppose it's because both in visual arts and in music, I don't believe in playing down to children. I think children are able to appreciate sophisticated levels of artistic expression, whether it's words, images or music. And they will read into it what they can and what they want to. But I also do think that picture books are still, and I think for a long time will be, an untapped literary art form that has enormous potential.

But we are sort of still stuck in a cultural mindset that picture books are for children, that comic books are for people who don't know how to read well. And as a consequence, the kind of multi-layered sophistication of plot and expression of thematic material that you get in a novel can be expressed in its own unique way in a picture book and could be a really sophisticated form of literature for adults. But it's just not within the culture, not yet. And you do see it in other parts of the world. But I think it's going to be a long time coming to Australia.

JADE ARNOLD: Well, I'm glad that we have your books as a starting point at the very least, and hopefully that continues to change over time. I imagine that there are a number of your books that stand out to young readers and will likely be stories that stay with them for years to come. Are there any books from your own childhood that stand out to you?

MATT OTTLEY: Yeah, there are, although picture books were not particularly sophisticated when I was a child. But I do remember there was a book called 'Go Dogs Go' about a whole bunch of dogs that have a party in the top of a tree. Again, probably because I was passionate about climbing trees when I was a little kid. But I did love Dr Seuss. I think Dr Seuss is a perennial, is going to be, within culture of literature for children, the world over, probably, for a very, very long time.

There was a book called 'Nellie Come Home'. And it was about a steam train that travels the world. But it was the kind of twisting plot that people did express in picture books, because picture books were often very wordy in those days. And I suspect that fashion and form will cycle back again. Picture books tend to be very spare at the moment.

But yeah, I think-- this is going to sound awfully self-centred in some strange way, but it was kind of my own work, because we lived in a place in the Highlands of New Guinea where we didn't get a lot of books. And in the later years, I was-- in New Guinea, ironically, it was the book clubs through Scholastic that found their way up into the Highlands of New Guinea. But of course, the turnaround was months. You'd look at the form and tick the box of which book you want, and then you'd just be waiting forever.

JADE ARNOLD: And almost forget about it before it came.

MATT OTTLEY: Yeah, but my mum used to get all sorts of recycled paper and sew it together into little booklets and then stick bits of cardboard on the covers and make these little drawing books for me. And I used to write and illustrate stories for the rest of the family. And I think that is where my passion for storytelling, and particularly for picture books, came from.

JADE ARNOLD: I love that even despite not having a lot of access to picture books, you still made them a part of your own life through sheer force of will.

MATT OTTLEY: Yeah.

JADE ARNOLD: Now, you have another lovely little connection with NSW Department of Education beyond illustrating the PRC artwork. You've also illustrated a phenomenal number of illustrations for 'The School Magazine'.

So, for our listeners who aren't aware, 'The School Magazine' is both the oldest magazine in Australia and the longest-running literary publication for children in Australia, having been established by the Department of Education in 1916.

The lovely School Magazine team very kindly had a look through their archives for me. And to date, you have illustrated at least a whopping 223 pieces of art, with your work going back as far as 2004.

Can you tell us a little about your time illustrating for 'The School Magazine', and what drew you to it, and how it differs from illustrating picture books?

MATT OTTLEY: Yeah, it was through the late Kim Gamble, wonderful illustrator, who was a friend. And it was either late 2003 or early 2004 that he came to me and said, 'Would you be interested, if I recommend your name to them?' You had to go through an application process, you know, they were good about that. But you know-- 'So, next time those applications are open, why don't you submit some stuff?' Partly because I think he wanted to pull back. He was working for them, but he was sort of trying to ease himself out of his own workload.

And it just became the most wonderful experience for me. Every time a new job would arrive, it was a bit like a-- kind of a lucky dip, 'cause that they had me doing mostly poetry. And it was just really exciting to open up the email and read the poem and go, 'OK, what can I do for this?' So, I had no idea from month to month what the work was going to be. But it was a lot of fun. And they were a fabulous team to work for.

JADE ARNOLD: Well, they spoke very highly of you and with great fondness. So, hopefully, for anyone listening, especially in a primary school setting, you might be able to access some of those older issues and see your wonderful work.

The next part of what I'm going to talk to you about is a little hard to do via podcast, because I'm going to be asking you some questions specifically surrounding the PRC artwork. So, if you're listening to this podcast and you haven't seen the 2025 PRC artwork already, please do yourself a massive favour and head over to premiersreadingchallenge.nsw.edu.au to see it.

I'm going to do my best to do its visuals justice, but you know what they say, 'A picture is worth a thousand words,' and I don't have the time to sit here and use a thousand words. So, it is this beautiful, whimsical, surrealist image that features a young girl sitting on a flying book while reading. There's this swarm of butterflies behind her, intermingled with her hair. There's also a mix of realistic and whimsical creatures flying through the clouds with her, including book jellyfish and book stingrays, which are my favourite.

Can you take us through your creative process for the PRC artwork? What was it like creating this artwork to promote reading when there's no narrative for it?

MATT OTTLEY: Well, the first thing I did, because it's how I work best, was to create a narrative. So, I asked myself a lot of questions about what was the story I wanted to tell. And I decided, because I guess it's a theme that has, as you've already alluded to, pops up a lot in my work, I wanted to illustrate something about connection, about belonging, about community, about working together.

Now, it might be hard to see all those themes initially, but if you look at all the elements. So, I wanted also to have a sort of a magical feel to it and to, I guess, tip lots of things upside down. So, if you look at the stingray creatures, which are books that are stingrays, a stingray is something that sort of has the motion of flying. It sort of flaps its wings, and it flies through the water. But, of course, this is a stingray that's in the sky.

Then, well, if you look at the girl, she's sitting on a book. But she's also reading a book, so, the entity that she's reading is also the thing that's carrying her. And if you look closely, the butterflies actually are her hair that morphs into butterflies. So, that's about change and about growth and about growing through a process that becomes something quite beautiful. Because I've always been interested in the idea that a caterpillar inside a chrysalis goes through this sort of period of struggle. And it looks like struggle.

And they emerge, and they're all crumpled up, and then they unfold. And that is the process of learning. That is the process of growing your imagination and your thinking and the power that is housed within you. So, that's what the butterflies are about.

There's a whale that is sort of in a haze in the distance. And that's just a thing of size and of awesome beauty. But it's also a mammal. And we are mammals. And so, across this vastness, there is a connection. And that's sort of symbolic of a connection to all things.

The jellyfish-- again, they are books that are jellyfish. If you think about it, jellyfish, they're not a single entity. They are a lot of different creatures that come together in this symbiotic relationship that allows the whole to exist in the world and to move through the water and to work as one, and yet they are all separate entities. So, they, to me, are the perfect symbol, metaphor for unity, for working together in this kind of perfect relationship. So, there was lots of thought that went into all of the elements.

JADE ARNOLD: That's wonderful. Now, this is, again, a hard thing to segue into because we're in a podcast. But Matt is actually sitting in front of me with an amazing jellyfish shirt on, which has got a black background with blue, with tinges of green jellyfish swimming around. So, clearly jellyfish are something that draw or resonate with you.

And I remember seeing some very similar sea creatures flying through in the illustrations in 'Stickboy'. So, there's that clear theme throughout your work and that connection with everything artistic that you touch that just has this very distinct Matt Ottley signature to it. So, it's lovely to see that connection. And I hope that little explanation was something that our teacher librarians listening can help unpack with their students and help them, I guess, enjoy the deeper meaning of this artwork. So, thank you so much for that.

You've also very generously composed a piece of music titled 'Dance of the Jellyfish', that accompanies this beautiful work. Can you tell us a little about the process of composing music that ties in with an illustration? Does the art come first? Or does it kind of all happen at once?

MATT OTTLEY: Sometimes it happens at once. But other times-- well, it can go either way. Often, I do a piece of artwork, and then I'll take lines from the images in the artwork and lay them on a music stave to create melodic lines. And obviously I have to adjust certain pitches to make the music work. And I will take other parts of the same object or other objects in the image to similarly create the vertical part of music, the harmonic structure.

And then that leads me on to thinking about the thing I've illustrated that I'm writing music about. So, in this case, jellyfish, so, I thought about the way that jellyfish move and that really kind of hypnotic, pulsing thing they do when they're going through the water. So, I wanted to recreate that musically. So, I just came up with a very simple theme that sort of pulses throughout the whole work.

There's a middle section, which is a little bit strident. It's different to the 2 sections that surround it. But again, it is based on the quick, jerky movements that sometimes you see jellyfish do. So, both originally actually came from improvisations I did, doing a live Instagram demonstration of how I work with music for the Literature Centre in Perth.

So, I was just sitting at a piano and had my guitar as well. And I just got thrown images at me. And one of them was a jellyfish out of 'The Incredible Freedom Machines'. And so, I thought on the spot, 'OK, well, it's that pulsing motion. What can I do?' So, the theme came out. And so, later on I thought, 'Oh, that's perfect, I'm going to use that in this piece of music.'

Similarly, the middle section was actually music that I improvised on that same session about bugs, but I kind of made it a little less-- the word is 'legato', so, a little less smooth. And you know when you sometimes see-- well, not so much in jellyfish, but often in smaller, like krill, you'll suddenly see a quick, jerky movement. And they move through space.

And so, yeah, it was kind of that idea that I wanted to recreate. So, often it'll be the image and the shapes and lines, and the colours as well, that inspire particular harmonies, particular melodic shapes, particular tone colours in the music. But then the subject matter itself takes over. And so, yeah, it's a very fluid process.

JADE ARNOLD: That's so interesting. Something really special about this project is that this composition ended up being a collaboration between yourself, the Premier's Reading Challenge and the Arts Unit music ensemble students. What was it like working with these students and having them perform your music?

MATT OTTLEY: Oh, it was extraordinary. A composer can never take for granted other people playing their music. And to have young people that presumably, for some of them, are right in the nascent stages of their careers as musicians play your music, it's quite wonderful, because there's a sort of a freshness to it there.

And the music team, Steve, particularly, the director, he was extraordinary, the way he worked with these young people. It was just wonderful for me to sit there and just watch this whole thing unfold. So, no, I feel very privileged.

JADE ARNOLD: It was a very special moment. I think our viola player and our cello player were both Year 10 students, which is just phenomenal. I try and think back to what I was doing in Year 10, and it certainly wasn't anything that phenomenal. So, yeah, just incredible talent, to just see your composition come to life with some very talented student musicians.

Composing music that links to artwork isn't a new concept for you. We've touched on this a little bit before, but you created this initiative called The Sound of Picture Books around this whole connection between artworks and music. Can you tell us a bit about this initiative and what a performance looks like?

MATT OTTLEY: Yeah, thank you. Well, it started about-- well, I suppose about 14 years ago now, in Perth. It was actually the West Australian Symphony Orchestra approached the Literature Centre, and I just happened to be in residence at the time, saying that they wanted to work with them to perhaps commission composers to write music around this new Australian literature for children and young adults. And the person who was the publicity person at the Literature Centre at the time said, 'Well, we just happen to have someone in residence who is a musician as well as an author and illustrator. Why don't you talk with them?'

And anyway, thankfully the orchestra was open enough to entertain this crazy idea I had, which was not just simply to write music, but to also demonstrate the process of drawing and of creating music on stage. So, it becomes a sort of an immersive experience for the audience. They get to see a piece of music. And the pieces of music all vary.

So, the shortest, which was for Danny Parker's book 'Tree' that I illustrated, that's between 6 and 7 minutes, depending on the performance. The longest I've done is a very large orchestral piece for 'The Tree of Ecstasy and Unbearable Sadness'. It's a 50-minute choral symphony. So, each show is necessarily different.

But for the shows where the works are shorter, we do a performance of the piece of music. So, it might be, for example, a string quintet with a piano. So, that's 6 musicians on stage. And behind them is a screen in which I've made a movie that has smaller bits of animation, but it's animated in that the camera moves around the images. But there are actually small episodes of animation as well, movement animation.

It all syncs with the music. So, the musicians, they're either conducted, or they have earbuds in with a click track. And so, they're playing to the music. And then I will do all sorts of drawing exercises. So, one of them is I just start drawing lines on the whiteboard, and the musicians are instructed to follow me.

And sometimes I'll draw with 2 hands. So, one hand is going up and one's going down, and different parts of the ensemble are following my hands. And it gets pretty wild. I get kids to come up. And they ostensibly, through drawings, start conducting the musicians.

And you see them just getting right into it. And they'll just go mad and scribble. And these musicians are trying to follow this. And it's a lot of fun.

Then I might do something like ask someone to come up on stage, and I'll draw their portrait. And then I'll take the lines of their face and put them on music staves, which are on a second whiteboard, and create music. And then I'll direct the ensemble to sight read and play the music. And I'll start verbally then directing them to do particular things, and others then, who are comfortable, to start really improvising.

And so, this piece of music grows that all began as a drawing. And so, we go through lots of that stuff like that. I sometimes paint as well and talk about the relationship in my painting between sound and painting. And then we do a sort of a reprise, a recap of the original composed piece of music, but the audience is now listening out for all of the elements in which I've been talking about, how I've used images from the book to create the music, et cetera.

So, yeah, it's lots of fun. It's a different way of introducing children to music, and particularly to art music in a way that they wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to do, I think, because it is all about tying all of the creative processes together. And it's making music play as well.

JADE ARNOLD: It sounds like such an exciting experience and also such an eye-opening one, and so very educational, but probably in a way that students don't realise they're learning because they're too busy having fun. Wow, I love that initiative so much. It sounds phenomenal.

Something that really stood out to me on your description of The Sound of Picture Books on your website is your description of it as an intermodal performance rather than a multimodal experience. What's the importance between this description and distinguishing between those 2 words?

MATT OTTLEY: Well, intermodal is a term I've coined. And it's borrowed from the world of transport. And I know that sounds very platitudinous almost or something, but when you've got goods that need to go from wherever they're produced to somewhere else, they might go on a truck, then on a ship, then on a train, whatever. They go via different modes of transport. So, the product is delivered to the customer via this intermodal system of transport.

And I thought, 'Well, that's a perfect sort of analogy, metaphor, simile for this idea of mine to deliver an idea, a concept, a theme, a story idea, a way of thinking through different modes of creativity.' I call it intermodal, though, because each form of creativity, as I've explained with taking lines and colours and placing those on musical staves and creating the notes, so, each form of creativity-- or doing that process in reverse-- really informs the other. So, then, it's not like I've just taken a piece of music that has the appropriate mood and set it to those images. The actual creation of each is deeply intertwined, so, that's why I call it intermodal.

Also, it's about the way the message is delivered. So, for example, in 'The Tree of Ecstasy and Unbearable Sadness', there's one part in the story-- because that is a book that I want to take people, my audience, in a very safe way, through an experience of psychosis. There's one section where the picture, the image, the illustration talks about-- shows that this metaphorical tree that's growing inside the boy that has flowers of ecstasy but fruit of unbearable sadness, it started to grow without and is encasing him.

So, you can see that he's being trapped. He's being held by his illness. But I wanted also to express the horror of what's going on inside of his head. That could only happen through music. And the words, all the words say is that eventually the illness was too strong for the medicine, so, then the image just shows us how constraining this illness is and how powerful it is in terms of rendering the medication ineffective.

But then the music, which in that part is a 68-part fugue, so, it's this multiple kind of-- there's lots of noise going on in the orchestra, and there's nothing you can follow, and it's just bedlam. And it just becomes oppressive, the sound. So, all those 3 things together carry the theme, carry the idea, carry the sensation of what it is I'm trying to deliver to my audience. So, that's also why I call it intermodal. It's the full experience of each that can bring other qualities to the experience that each form on its own can't, if that makes sense.

JADE ARNOLD: Well, I think you've just answered the next question that I had for you, which was, basically, for 'The Tree of Ecstasy and Unbearable Sadness', which for those of you who aren't aware, it's a longer-form picture book targeted at young adults and adults. Your blurb suggests readers 15 and up.

As you mentioned, you illustrated this 50-minute piece of music for a large orchestra and choir. And it's this incredibly unique experience. So, I was going to ask you why you chose to produce it in this way. But I think you've touched on a lot of that. But can you tell us a little bit more about that project and the inspiration behind it? Because I know it has a very personal side to it.

MATT OTTLEY: Yeah, well, I've lived with type 1 bipolar disorder since I was a child. Basically, I had the first sort of classic bipolar episodes emerge as an adolescent, which is generally when it does emerge. But I had the seeds of psychosis long before that, only realised much, much, much, much later, that's what was actually happening. But like a lot of people who suffer from complex mental illnesses, I have experienced the stigma that goes with it, that is unfortunately still here. It's just-- it sort of finds its way into the way we behave to each other in often obtuse ways.

So, you know, I don't want to go into depth on it. But, for example, one of the really horrible forms of stigma that can occur now is corporate indifference to mental illness. But it's also the impact of an illness like that has effects that people often don't think about. So, for example, it's been a very long time since I've been able to do the kind of usual author-illustrator talks in schools, partly because travelling messes with my body clock.

There are various kinds of stimulation that happens when you're on a tour like that. It's a recipe for ill health for me. But certainly, in Australia, that is practically the only way that authors and illustrators can make money. So, I've been a very highly accoladed author and illustrator, but it has also been an extremely difficult financial road, because I can't do what other authors and illustrators can do.

So, I got to the point where I thought, if I'm truly honest with myself about wanting society to change its deeply held views about complex mental illness, i.e. that people who suffer from illnesses like schizophrenia or psychotic bipolar disorder are not trustworthy, can never have positions of leadership, or in cases, people still think that are often sub-intelligent. Those sort of attitudes still do exist. It's going to have to be up to people like me who can express in a way that others receive my experiences to try and change that narrative.

That really was my sole purpose of doing the project, was just to give people a safe, felt experience of what it might be like. What they do with it after that is their business. But at least I've said my piece.

JADE ARNOLD: Absolutely, I think books, as we were talking about earlier, are this really powerful tool to help develop empathy and understanding in others. And I think, as a society, we've come a long way-- we're not there yet, but a long way in terms of how we talk about depression and anxiety. And there's a lot more representation of characters in fiction and in other forms of media that have those conditions.

But you're right, I certainly can't think of any positive or at least neutral representations of individuals with bipolar or schizophrenia that aren't then portrayed as a villain character in that piece of media. So, it's so important to have representation like that in our literature that we consume. So, it's a very profound piece of work and I strongly recommend the teacher librarians listening to this podcast to pick it up and read it.

Thank you so much for joining me today, Matt. It's been wonderful talking to you about the inspiration and the process behind your artworks and a career that has focused on bringing stories to life. I know our teacher librarians and PRC coordinators will be featuring your books on displays and showcasing both the music and the artwork of 'Dance of the Jellyfish' as they encourage students to dive into reading and hopefully diving into your adult books themselves.

MATT OTTLEY: Thank you, Jade. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.

JADE ARNOLD: Thank you.

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

JADE ARNOLD: 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.

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.

[intro music]

ANNOUNCER: Listen @ The Arts Unit.

JADE ARNOLD: The Arts Unit recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples and storytellers of this place, now known as Australia. We are grateful for the continuing care of country, waterways and skies where we listen, read and learn. From here on the lands of the Gadigal and Wangal peoples of the Eora nation, and from wherever you are listening, we respect the Elders of the past and present and extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening.

[didgeridoo playing]

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

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.

[page turning]

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.