Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Stella Lees

Stella Lees co-edited (with Pam Macintyre) The Oxford Companion to Australian Children's Literature (1993).

Stella Lees reviews four young adult non-fiction books

May 2004, no. 261 01 May 2004
As Eric Hobsbawn points out in his autobiography, Interesting Times: A Twentieth Century Life (2002), ‘the world needs historians more than ever, especially skeptical ones’. History, however, is not a popular subject in today’s schools. Three of these four books make attempts, variously successful, to engage young readers in a sense of the past. The other is a bizarre compilation of odd deta ... (read more)

Stella Lees reviews 'My Name is Will Thompson' by Robert Newton, 'Camel Face' by Moya Simons and 'Burnt Out' by Marguerite Hann Syme

April 2001, no. 229 01 April 2001
Funny things happen in children's books, and there are some odd things happening to them, too. Robert Newton and Moya Simons clearly seek to tickle the funny-bone of twelve-year-olds; Marguerite Hann Syme, on the other hand, raises questions that are more likely to preoccupy adults, and there are no wisecracks in her offering. The funny thing is that all three are published as books for young adul ... (read more)

Stella Lees reviews 5 picture books

October 2005, no. 275 01 October 2005
No kangaroos, emus or possums in this lot – just pigs, rats, hares, cats, dogs and fantastic monsters. Australian picture books are in a healthy state if these five beautifully produced, cleverly constructed and thoughtful examples represent the genre. All celebrate that peculiarly human gift, imagination – the unsuspected alternatives, the leap outside the confines of reality. All would provi ... (read more)

Stella Lees reviews 'Sacked!' by Rachel Flynn, illustrated by Craig Smith and 'Footy Shorts' by Margaret Clark

April 2000, no. 219 01 April 2000
Rachel Flynn’s Sacked! is for the eight-to ten-year-old market, the same audience that J.K.  Rowling’s Harry Potter books are tapping. It’s an interesting stage when everything from cereal packets to Dad’s car manual demands to be read. Sacked! explores a clever absurdity with tongue-in-cheek, where the adult is likely to see the joke more than the child. ... (read more)