Need a last-minute Book Week activity? Why not get your students to create and use semaphore flags or morse code? Morse code and the semaphore signalling method was used to communicate important military information, home-front anxieties and, eventually, hopes for a more peaceful world. We’ve created some handy activity sheets for the book Lighthouse Girl by […]

Class sets of bookmarks and activities for all our latest titles are available now, just in time for Book Week. There’s plenty to do and explore, so make sure to get your order in while stocks last.

Kids and parents can help create a rainbow collage as part of a new exhibition at the State Library of Western Australia’s Story Place Gallery this month.

Swimming on the Lawn by Yasmin Hamid follows the adventures of Farida, who lives with her family in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. Sudanese culture and customs are brought to life, from the ubiquitous tea service and hearty breakfasts to the commemoration of Muslim holidays and the rites of birth and death.

We have class sets of our free teaching activity; ‘Do you know your Aussie animals?’ available to order or download now. In the meantime, author Deb Fitzpatrick talks about her new novel, The Spectacular Spencer Gray, and why it features Australia’s most endangered mammal.

Find out how to get the latest free bookmarks and teaching activities from Fremantle Press.

I Love Me by Sally Morgan and Ambelin Kwaymullina is longlisted for the Australian Book Industry’s award for Small Publisher’s Children’s Book of the Year.

The world premiere of Hellie Turner’s The Lighthouse Girl is set to take place in Albany, the birthplace of the much-loved Anzac story. Based on Dianne Wolfer’s acclaimed books, Lighthouse Girl and Light Horse Boy, the play will premiere at the Albany Entertainment Centre on 22 April before its Perth season at the State Theatre […]

A younger brother with a built-in cupcake oven? Who wouldn’t want that? James Foley is one of the authors on Russ the Story Bus, which kicks off the Sydney Writers’ Festival’s Children’s Festival of Moving Stories with a trip to schools in Western Sydney and, for the first time, the NSW regional centres of Bathurst, […]

Sally Morgan’s Sister Heart was one of 30 books by Australian authors shortlisted for a 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Award this week. Selected from 425 entries, Morgan wins $5,000 for being shortlisted and goes into the running to win $80,000.

Red Read’s life takes an alarming turn when his mother sells him to an infamous smuggler plying his trade off the north-west coast in the closing days of the 19th century. Author Norman Jorgensen provides a sneak preview.

Why not extend the fun of book week by ordering your class a free set of bookmarks, posters and activities?

Chris Nixon’s book trailer shows exactly what happens when you wake the panda! Pandamonia is available in all good bookstores and online now. Read the teaching notes or order a free set of bookmarks from events@fremantlepress.com.au.

Tim Parish will be helping us launch Lily in the Mirror by Paula Hayes at 10.30 am on Saturday 6 August at Paper Bird Children’s Books and Arts.

Sally Tinker of S. Tinker Inc. is the world’s foremost inventor under the age of 12 and creator of Brobot: Just as a Brother Should Be (patent pending). Fremantle Press is offering five lucky schools the chance to win two special Brobot gift packs: one for the classroom and one for the person who designs […]

Kate McCaffrey’s Destroying Avalon was Australia’s first novel to depict the effects of cyberbullying. A decade on, Kate explains why she’s returned to similar territory in her forthcoming book Saving Jazz.

The Indigenous Support Unit at Central TAFE was donated a beautiful portrait of author May O’Brien, which was painted by Geraldine Carrington in a workshop organised by Goldie Cannon a few years ago.

Just when famed youth reporter Pollo di Nozi thinks she’ll never find another news story, she stumbles upon not one but two very surprising secrets.

We all want more time for reading, so who wouldn’t want their very own ‘do not disturb’ sign for the bedroom door? Our free one is very special!

We All Sleep by Ezekiel Kwaymullina will be read aloud on a new episode of Play School for ABC Children’s TV to air later this year.

Representation matters, including in picture book illustrations. Perhaps especially in illustrations, because children are fluent in the language of art in a way that most adults are not. There is no aspect of an illustration that escapes the attention of a child, and this means that to create art for children is to speak to an audience more attuned to the nuances of representation than yourself. This is one of the reasons why the misrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in illustration – or the misrepresentation of other diverse peoples, for that matter – should never be dismissed as being ‘only a picture book’.

Peacock Visuals has created a book trailer for Can a skeleton have an x-ray? by Kyle Hughes-Odgers.

Kate McCaffrey has won her second Australian Family Therapists’ Award for Children’s Literature for her latest novel, Crashing Down.

What difference does it make if the characters in young adult novels swear? From time to time, publishers are contacted by parents or schools who are concerned by the appearance in YA fiction of (to quote an editor of T. S. Eliot) words ending in ‘uck’ or ‘ugger’.