Category: Age groups

A Leaf Called Greaf, illustrated and designed by Kelly Canby was named runner up in the Best Published Book Cover Design Award in the Whitsundays Literary Heart Awards this weekend. The Whitsundays Festival launched the Literary Heart Awards earlier this year, offering cash prizes to recognise and honour outstanding contributions to the literary and design landscape. In […]

Australia’s most coveted prize for children’s literature has gone to Fremantle Press author Kelly Canby for her 2023 picture book Timeless. The CBCA Picture Book of the Year rewards outstanding books of the genre in which the creators achieve both artistic and literary unity. Children’s publisher at Fremantle Press, Cate Sutherland, said every one of Kelly’s […]

Get the classroom thinking creatively, and help Quokka find a friend, with this free teaching activity. Working together or solo, kids can brainstorm the animals that a quokka would encounter on the beach and draw a friend for them.

Activity Sheet

'Draw a Friend for Quokka'

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Using the illustrations of bush animals, get the classroom colouring in and writing the Noongar word for each animal in the blank space. Each of the animals can be found in the dual-language Noongar and English picture book, Djinang Bonar: Seeing Seasons by Ebony Froome and Leanne Zilm.

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'What animals can we see in the bush?'

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Say Hello to storytime, and teach the kids the fun of rhyme! This free video features Renae Hayward, author of Say Hello, who brings the joy of reading aloud to the screen. Say Hello can be read, sung or acted out and features simple, high-contrast illustrations with many recognisable words. Plus, there are lots of chances for babies to […]

In activity one, ask your students to draw the elements of a stage. Working together or solo, have them plan a dance, making sure it has all the elements to wow an audience. Activity two teaches dance vocabulary using a crossword puzzle. Further discussion questions for Breaking Pointe include: You can download the activity sheets here and, for more […]

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'Set The Stage/Dance Challenge'

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Mark Greenwood shares mysterious true Australian stories in his junior fiction series, beginning with The Dragon’s Treasure and The Vanishing. In the teaching activity for The Dragon’s Treasure, budding reporters share the story of discovering treasure on a remote West Australian beach, using the newspaper template for the Pirate Times. For The Vanishing, kids create their own comic strip: drawing the moment […]

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'Create A Comic/Dig Up A Story'

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Mark Greenwood is a history hunter. He enjoys searching for lost explorers and glittering treasure, delving into baffling mysteries and investigating famous cold cases. In this piece, he shares his passion for the unexplained and how that resulted in a new series of books. Why these mysteries in particular? I’m hooked on mystery, history and […]

Get down to the Queenscliffe Literary Festival and visit Fremantle Press author and editor of Avast! Pirate Stories From Transgender Authors, Michael Earp.

Holding a published copy of One Wrong Turn in my hands was a dream come true. I never entertained the idea of there being a sequel and the fact that it now exists is largely thanks to the enthusiasm of Australia’s dance community and of course, the wonderful team at Fremantle Press! Dance has been […]

Say Hooray by Renae Hayward and Rebecca Mills has been identified as one of the best Australian books to help children get the most literate start in life. Judged by a panel of Certified Practising Speech Pathologists with specific knowledge and skill in children’s language and literature development, the Speech Pathology Book of the Year […]

Nedingar: Ancestors, a bilingual picture book by Isobel Bevis and Leanne Zilm, has been shortlisted for the Karajia Award by the Wilderness Society of Australia. Launched in 2022, the Karajia Award for Children’s Literature celebrates the First Nations authors illustrators who create children’s books that honour a connection to Country and tell stories exploring land, […]

In A Leaf Called Greaf, Greaf changes with the seasons, and so does Bear. As Greaf leaves him, Bear feels a lightness and warmth that he had almost forgotten. Greaf has gone, but Bear knows its memory will hold a special place in his heart forever. In this activity, we ask children to draw their […]

Activity Sheet

'What Does Your Emotion Look Like?'

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In 1989, Mecak Ajang Alaak led the Lost Boys on a four-year journey from Ethiopia to Kenya to protect them from becoming child soldiers. To understand these countries better, create a country profile for each of the following four countries: South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya. This activity gives kids the opportunity to learn practical […]

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'Create A Profile For These African Countries'

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Tell us about Avast! What’s unique about it? Avast! is the first anthology of its kind to be traditionally published in this country! It’s fiction entirely written by transgender authors, each exploring the prompt of pirates. Why pirates? Why not?! When we were offered the chance to choose a theme ourselves, we wanted something playful but […]

Children’s publisher Cate Sutherland says, ‘When we first shortlisted Father of the Lost Boys for the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award, we didn’t know then what we know now – that the book would be embraced by readers and that working with Yuot would be such a delight. Both are great reasons for us to […]

Children’s publisher Cate Sutherland said she loves working with Kelly Canby. Cate said, ‘Kelly’s work is nuanced and always evolving. She deals with sophisticated human emotions with subtlety and empathy, simplifying them so that young readers can understand themselves and others.’ Tell us about your latest book and why you wrote it. My latest book […]

What do good illustrators and authors do when they sit down to write a book? Sally Tinker, the leading character of Brobot: now available in colour, ponders this question with her author and creator James Foley. James’s new edition of Brobot: now available in colour is available in all good bookshops and online. Gastronauts: now available in colour is due for release […]

Djinang Bonar: Seeing Seasons by Ebony Froome and Leanne Zilm takes readers through the six Noongar seasons and is a wonderful way to learn some Noongar language. Listen to Ebony read the story in Noongar.

In this episode, we are tuning in to listen to children’s author James Foley speak with his lead character, Sally Tinker, about how the big ideas come to be and where you can find them. James’s new edition of Brobot: now available in colour is available in all good bookshops and online. Gastronauts: now available in colour is due […]

On Wednesday 8 May, the Hon. Sabine Winton MLA, Minister for Early Childhood Education, and Bookaburras Ambassador Renae Hayward helped launch the 2024 Books for Little Bookaburras at the KindiLink early learning centre at Bentley Primary School. In her speech, Winton emphasised the importance of local stories by a local publisher for local Western Australian […]

Fremantle Press is pleased to announce that the Books for Little Bookaburras 2024 program will be launched by Hon. Sabine Winton MLA, Minister for Early Childhood Education on Wednesday 8 May.

Just when we thought Kelly Canby’s star couldn’t keep rising, we were sent the amazing news that the North American edition of her picture book The Hole Story has just been named a Teacher Favourite in the 2024 North American Children’s Book Council Awards. Kelly Canby said she was surprised and delighted by the news. She […]

Children’s publisher Cate Sutherland can’t resist a dog book – especially written by master storyteller Deb Fitzpatrick. She asked Deb to share all the waggily, woofy goodness of writing Deb’s entertaining new adventure Kelpie Chaos. Tell us about your latest book and why you wrote it. Kelpie Chaos is a novel for younger middle readers […]