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24 September, 2019 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

by S.J. Morgan

It’s 1983 in Thatcher’s Britain. Alec Johnston has left his comfortable family home in Cardiff and taken a flat with bikers Minto, Stobes and Black. There he meets Sindy, Minto’s strange and vulnerable young girlfriend. When she starts to view Alec as a possible saviour from her abusive relationship, it earns Alec a big target on his back. Continue reading Hide →

Title

Cryptosight

22 September, 2019 Editor-in-Chief 1 Comment

by Nean McKenzie

Rafferty Kaminski is a 13-year-old who believes in facts. Not like his Cryptozoologist father, who searches for creatures not proven to exist.

When their father disappears in the Flinders Ranges, strange things start happening. Continue reading Cryptosight →

Author

Beverley McWilliams

20 September, 2019 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

Beverley McWilliams is a children’s author from South Australia with a passion for historical fiction. Her debut picture book Born to Fly published by MidnightSun Publishing was a CBCA notable book. Beverley has published two middle-grade historical novels with Pantera Press: The Reindeer and the Submarine (2022) and Spies in the Sky (2023). Beverley is the event coordinator for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (South Australia).

Title

Born to Fly

20 August, 2019 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

written by Beverley McWilliams
illustrated by Timothy Ide

HB 32 | 282 x 245 | ISBN: 9781925227567 | $29.99
Picture book | August 2019
MidnightSun Publishing
Distributed by NewSouth Books

Born in 1889 on a farm in rural South Australia, Harry Butler was determined to fly. Follow Harry’s remarkable journey from studying the flight of his chickens to becoming one of Australia’s most significant pioneer aviators. Continue reading Born to Fly →

Teacher Notes

Teacher Notes – Cryptosight

22 July, 2019 Site Manager Leave a comment

Teachers’ Notes for Cryptosight (pdf)

Teacher Notes

Teacher Notes – Born to Fly

20 July, 2019 Site Manager Leave a comment

Teachers’ notes for Born to Fly (pdf)

Books

River Stone – the process

9 July, 2019 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

Guest Post by Rachel Hennessy, author of River Stone

I started writing River Stone in 2015 because, as I talked about at the launch, it helped me re-find joy in writing. I had been living in Melbourne since 2009 but I had lost track of myself as a writer. Writing had slipped into that region of the tedious, the thing I was supposed to do, not what I wanted to do. I’d got caught up in judging everything I wrote against possible publication prospects, rather than enjoying the process itself.

Then came a tutorial with my creative writing first year students. Continue reading River Stone – the process →

Launches

Launching The Day We Built the Bridge

8 May, 2019 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

The Month (or more) We Launched the Bridge Book!

Guest blog post by Samantha Tidy, author of The Day We Built the Bridge

What a book birthday! This year, I have launched The Day We Built the Bridge in no less than 5 cities! Now that the dust has settled, and the second shipment of the book has arrived (gosh – 4500 copies sold in 3 days – and in reprint already!) I thought I’d share the joy and gratitude that ‘the bridge book’ (The Day We Built the Bridge, written by Samantha Tidy, illustrated by Fiona Burrows) has brought into our lives. Continue reading Launching The Day We Built the Bridge →

Title

I Would Dangle the Moon

27 March, 2019 Editor-in-Chief 1 Comment

by Amber Moffat

HB 32 | 260 x 280 | ISBN: 9781925227529
$29.99 | Picture book
MidnightSun Publishing | June 2019
Distributed by NewSouth Books

What would you do if you could pluck the moon from the sky? Would you scoop it up in an ice cream cone, or ride it like a snail shell across the night sky? I Would Dangle the Moon is an imaginative and playful story about all the wonderful things a mother would do with the moon for her child if she could do anything in the world. Continue reading I Would Dangle the Moon →

Author

Amber Moffat

27 March, 2019 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

Amber Moffat is a writer and visual artist based in Western Australia. She believes that being able to share stories is the most magnificent thing about being human. Amber is originally from New Zealand and still has strong ties to her hometown of Dunedin. She is an experienced teacher and a fierce advocate for arts education.

At the end of 2015 Amber was awarded an Emerging Writers’ Mentorship by the Australian Society of Authors. The judges said of her work, “This picture book text was absolutely wonderful – lyrical, evocative, poetic, and quite unusual. It had a really unique voice, and the imagery was very striking.”

Amber was the recipient of a Paper Bird Fellowship in 2018, and she completed the final artwork for her debut picture book, I Would Dangle the Moon, during her residency at Fremantle’s Paper Bird Books and Arts.

Title

River Stone

27 March, 2019 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

by Rachel Hennessy

Pandora, of the River People, wants more than her village can provide. When disaster comes to her people, Pan has the opportunity to become their saviour and escape her inevitable pairing with life-long friend Matthew. She wants to make her own choices. Deep in her soul, she believes there is something more out there, beyond the boundaries, especially since she encountered the hunter of the Mountain People.

A story of confused love, difficult friendships and clumsy attempts at heroism, Pan’s fight for her village will bring her into contact with a whole new world, where the truth about the past will have terrifying reverberations for her people’s future survival. Continue reading River Stone →

Author

Rachel Hennessy

27 March, 2019 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

Rachel Hennessy is the award-winning author of five novels of contemporary fiction: The Quakers (Wakefield Press, 2008), The Heaven I Swallowed (Wakefield Press, 2013)), and the three books in The Burning Days trilogy: River Stone (MidnightSun, 2019), Mountain Arrow (MidnightSun, 2020) and now City Knife.

Her first novel, about a group of obsessive teenagers, was described by John Birmingham as ‘un-put-down-able’ and was the winner of the Adelaide Festival’s Best Unpublished Manuscript Award. Her second novel was Runner Up in the Australian/Vogel Award, long-listed for the Nita B Kibble Award and described by Australian Aboriginal Studies as ‘an important book’. Rachel lives in Melbourne with her partner and their two young daughters.

Uncategorized

New Year – New Books

1 March, 2019 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

The year is planned out for MidnightSun and it’s full of exciting titles including a book for 8-12 year olds called Cryptosight. It’s written by Nean McKenzie and it’s her first book so we are extra excited to see it come to life. The cover design by Jenna Vincent is stunning and we are sure that it’ll capture the imagination of lots of kids around Australia.

It’s fabulous to have so many wonderful books coming up this year! Keep an eye here on the website and on our Facebook page for more info as the months pass.

Teacher Notes

Teacher Notes – The Day We Built the Bridge

20 February, 2019 Site Manager Leave a comment

Teachers’ Notes for The Day We Built the Bridge (pdf)

Title

The Day We Built the Bridge

1 February, 2019 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

Written by Samantha Tidy
Illustrated by Fiona Burrows

HB 32 | 210 x 297 | ISBN: 9781925227437
$29.99 | Picture book
MidnightSun Publishing | February 2019
Distributed by NewSouth Books

Big dreams can take generations. It can also take six million hand-driven rivets and 53,000 tonnes of steel. The Day We Built the Bridge celebrates our connection with one another, and declares that despite the greatest of challenges, together we can make history.

There are moments in history that connect us and define a country. In our hearts and minds, some moments rely on us to hold onto a dream, face tough Continue reading The Day We Built the Bridge →

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