ABC/Harper Collins, 2025

Mim Cohen roams the world in a travelling bookshop, with her dad and brother and a horse called Flossy.

Flossy leads them where she will, to the place where they're needed most ... the place where the perfect book will find its way home.

Now Mim has arrived in Salzburg -- the town of Mozart and mountains, gardens and castles, Sacher torte and sausages ... and Mum!

Mim knows they're here to help Mum recover from the bump to her head. To show her love and patience. To remind her who she is.

If only they could find Mum the right book. If only Dad would stop giving everyone the same silly book.

The charming new adventure from award-winning author Katrina Nannestad and beloved illustrator Cheryl Orsini.

A new heart-wrenching, impeccably researched historical novel for middle-grade readers.

The Nazis want everyone to be the same. If you're different, you don't belong.

Not belonging is dangerous ...

Anna's little sister, Eva, is frail and needs time to learn new things. She has a huge heart and a gift for loving, but Hitler doesn't value such riches. And so she's hidden away. Safe for now, but with the threat of discovery always near.

Anna does her best to bring joy and light to Eva's small life with stories, trinkets and treasures from the outside world. But soon, more children need hiding. Risks are taken - by Anna, by her best friend Udo, by a Nazi seamstress and feisty Brunhilde. Until Anna wonders if any of them will make it through the war ...

Loyalty and love. Family and friendship. Understanding and tolerance. Right and wrong. Multi-award-winning Australian author Katrina Nannestad explores it all in this thrilling and powerful historical novel.

While writing All the Beautiful Things, I kept a journal in which I wrote some ideas, painted some pictures and made some paper dolls.

Here are some samples from my journal. You can see the paper dolls are decorated with all sorts of stuff - coloured paper, old letters, ribbon, wax seals, maps, playing cards, tickets, jelly packets, chocolate wrappers, wool, string and whatever else I could find around the house at the time.

It was lots of fun. You might like to try some Dolly collage yourself some time. Or maybe you’d like to keep a journal while you’re writing or reading a book. You can write, draw, paint or collage in it.

A new heartwarming novel set in 1950s Australia from bestselling author Katrina Nannestad

Nettie Sweeney has a dad, three big sisters, a farm full of cows and a cat called Mittens. But it's not enough. She longs for a mother. One with a gentle touch and sparkles in her eyes. Instead, she has Aunty Edith with slappy hands, a sharp tongue and the disturbing belief that peas are proper food.

When Dad marries Alice, all Nettie's dreams come true. The Sweeney home overflows with laughter, love and, in time, a baby brother. Billy. The light of Nettie's life.

Then tragedy strikes. The Sweeney family crumbles. Nettie tries to make things right, but has she made everything so much worse?

From multi-award-winning Australian author Katrina Nannestad comes a heartbreakingly beautiful and uplifting historical novel. Life and death. Weddings and floods. Coronation joy and post-war grief. Nettie Sweeney and her community experience it all. Together. With humour, kindness and love.

Shortlisted for the 2024 Indie Book Awards - Children’s Books

Shortlisted for the 2024 Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Award (8-10 Years)

Longlisted for the 2024 ARA Historical Novel Prize - Children and Young Adult

Silver Linings is fiction but it was inspired by something that happened to my grandmother when she was a young woman, raising a family.

There are many family names, places and anecdotes tangled up with my fictional Sweeney Family.

In this photograph:

Back row, left to right - Anne, Elaine, Colleen.

Front row, left to right - Winston, Frank, Alice, Lynette (Nettie).

This is my mother, Nettie, as a little girl.

That thing with the piglet at the start of the story might sound unbelievable, but my mum really did that!

My mum was a great help in writing Silver Linings. Not only did she share many wonderful stories of her childhood, school and communtiy, but she was my go-to expert on lifestyle, culture, language and big happenings during the 1950s in the Northern Rivers area of Australia. We had lots of fun together throughout the whole process of researching and creating the story.

Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 2nd June, 1953. It was celebrated across the British Empire and is a significant event in Nettie’s life in Silver Linings.

I don't want to remember the truck, or the night I was taken, or the family I left behind. I am not a sad Polish girl. I am a good and happy German girl.

I am. I am. I am.

It's the Second World War and Himmler's Lebensborn Program is in full flight when eight-year-old Zofia Ulinski is kidnapped by the Germans. She has blonde hair and blue eyes, just like the other Polish children taken from their families and robbed of their names, their language, their heritage.

But when Zofia is adopted into a wealthy and loving German family, it is easier, it is safer to bury her past, deep down, so everything is forgotten.

Until the Polish boy arrives.

And the past comes back to haunt her.

From Katrina Nannestad, multi-award-winning author of We Are Wolves and Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief, comes a story about family lost and found, and the choices we make when we don't have a choice at all.

Winner - 2023 Queensland Literary Awards - Children’s Book Award

Winner - 2023 Book Links Award for Children’s Historical Fiction

Notable Book — 2023 CBCA Book of the Year Awards (Younger Readers)

Shortlisted - 2023 ARA Historical Novel Prize - Children/YA

Shortlisted - 2023 ABIA Book of the Year for Younger Children (ages 7-12)

Shortlisted - 2023 R.E.A.L./KOALA Awards (Years 7-9)

Shortlisted - 2024 YABBA (Young Australians Best Book Awards) - Fiction for Years 7-9

Wood splinters and Mama screams and the nearest soldier seizes her roughly by the arms. My sister pokes her bruised face out from beneath the table and shouts, 'Run, Sasha! Run!'

So I run. I run like a rabbit.

It's spring, 1942. The sky is blue, the air is warm and sweet with the scent of flowers.

And then everything is gone.

The flowers, the proud geese, the pretty wooden houses, the friendly neighbours. Only Sasha remains.

But one small boy, alone in war-torn Russia, cannot survive.

One small boy without a family cannot survive.

One small boy without his home cannot survive.

What that small boy needs is an army.

Winner of the 2022 ARA Historical Novel Prize (Children and Young Adult)

Winner of the 2022 Indie Book Awards (Children’s)

Winner of the 2022 ABA Booksellers’ Choice Book of the Year Awards (Children’s)

Winner of the 2022 CBCA Sun Project: Shadowers’ Choice Awards (Younger Readers)

Honour Book — 2022 CBCA Book of the Year Awards (Younger Readers)

Shortlisted for the 2022 ABIA Book of the Year for Younger Children (Ages 7–12)

Shortlisted for the 2022 Book Links Award for Children’s Historical Fiction

Shortlisted for the 2023 NSW Premier's Award for Children's Literature - the Patricia Wrightson Prize.

Shortlisted for the 2023 R.E.A.L./ KOALA Awards (Years 7–9)

Sometimes it’s good to be wild.

Sometimes you have to be wild.

When the Russian Army marches into East Prussia at the end of the war, the Wolf family must flee. Liesl, Otto and their baby sister, Mia, find themselves lost and alone, in a blizzard, in the middle of a war zone. Liesl has promised Mama that she will keep her brother and sister safe.

But sometimes, to survive, you have to do bad things. Dangerous things. Wild things.

Sometimes to survive, you must become a wolf.

Winner of the 2021 ARA Historical Novel Prize (Children and Young Adult)

Winner of the 2021 Book Links Award for Children’s Historical Fiction

Winner of the 2022 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature — Children’s Literature Award

Winner of the 2022 KOALA Awards (Fiction for Years 7–9)

Shortlisted for the 2021 Queensland Literary Awards — Children’s Book Award

Shortlisted for the 2021 CBCA Book of the Year Awards (Younger Readers)

Shortlisted for the 2021 ABA Booksellers’ Choice Book of the Year Awards (Children’s)

Shortlisted for the 2024 Children’s Sequoyah Book Award

Longlisted for the 2021 ABIA Book of the Year for Younger Children (Ages 7–12)

Mim Cohen roams the world in a travelling bookshop, with her dad and brother and a horse called Flossy.

Flossy leads them where she will, to the place where they’re needed most … the place where the perfect book will find its way home.

Now Mim has arrived in a pretty Dutch village where she meets Willemina, a kind and gentle child, who is being bullied by a girl named Gerda.

Mim knows they’re here to help Willemina. To change her life. To make her strong and brave and happy.

If only Dad would find her the right book. If only he would stop giving everyone else the wrong book!

Notable Book — 2022 CBCA Book of the Year Awards (Younger Readers)

Shortlisted for the 2022 Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards (8–10 Years)

Shortlisted for the 2023 R.E.A.L./ KOALA Awards (Younger Readers)

Mim Cohen roams the world in a travelling bookshop, with her dad and brother and a horse called Flossy. Flossy leads them where she will, to the place where they're needed most ... the place where the perfect book will find its way home.

Now Mim has arrived on a charming Greek Island, where a wedding is about to take place. Everyone is excited - everyone, that is, except the bride and groom.

Mim knows they're here to help Anjelica, the bride. To stop the wedding. To set her free to follow her dreams.

If only Anjelica would read the right book, the one Mim gave her. If only she would stop reading the wrong book.

Notable Book — 2023 CBCA Book of the Year Awards (Younger Readers)

Mim Cohen roams the world in a travelling bookshop, with her dad and brother and a horse called Flossy. Flossy leads them where she will, to the place where they're needed most ... the place where the perfect book will find its way home.

Now Mim has arrived in elegant Paris where she meets Pierre, a talented but anxious artist who cannot bear to give up his paintings, even to sell them. He's miserable and poor. His customers are cross.

Mim knows they're here to help Pierre. To calm him down. To turn him into a successful artist. To make him truly happy.

If only Mim could find him the right book. If only Dad would stop getting muddled and giving everyone the wrong book.

Mim Cohen roams the world in a travelling bookshop, with her dad and brother and a horse called Flossy. Flossy leads them where she will, to the place where they're needed most ... the place where the perfect book will find its way home.

Now Mim has arrived in the Cotswolds, just in time for a dog show. The judge, Lord Melville-Timms, is in a pickle. He has judged cakes and flowers and vegetables, but never dogs. And his bulldog, Bubbles, is shamefully disobedient!

Mim knows they're here to help Lord Melville-Timms. To give him courage. To prevent a dog-show disaster.

If only Mim could find Lord Melville-Timms the right book. If only Dad would stop giving him the wrong book.

Shortlisted - 2024 YABBA (Young Australians Best Book Awards) - Fiction for Younger Readers

I had a wonderful time doing doggy research for this book by hanging out at a local dog show. It was a truly joyful experience. Both dogs and owners were incredibly charming and friendly. If you’ve never been to a dog show, give it a try. You’ll be welcomed with lots of tail wagging.

ABC/Harper Collins, 2024

Mim Cohen roams the world in a travelling bookshop, with her dad and brother and a horse called Flossy.

Flossy leads them where she will, to the place where they're needed most ... the place where the perfect book will find its way home.

Now Mim has arrived in wonderful Venice, city of canals, palaces, bridges, boats and ... quarrels. Gondolier battles, cat-nappings and laundry theft are just the beginning. The Magnifico family and the Forte family are at war.

Mim knows they're here to help the feuding families. To show them a better way to behave. To bring an end to the vicious vendetta.

If only Mim could find each of them the right book. If only they'd all stop reading the wrong books.

For the first ten years of Freja's life, she and her mother Clementine have roamed the Arctic in search of zoological wonders. Happy, content, together. Freja and Clem. Clem and Freja.

But now, everything is changing, and Clementine must send Freja away to live with her old friend Tobias, a best-selling crime writer and, quite possibly, the most absent-minded man on earth.

Tobias isn't used to life with a child, and Freja isn't used to people at all, but together they'll stumble into an Italian adventure so big that it will change things forever...

This is the first book in a new series about family, friendship and finding yourself.

Notable Book — 2018 CBCA Book of the Year Awards (Younger Readers)

Shortlisted for the 2018 Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards (8–10 Years)

Longlisted for the 2018 ABIA Book of the Year for Younger Children (Ages 7–13)

Here you can browse at a few photos of Rome.

A bit like the one Roberto drives.

The tiny car is a Fiat.

The Virgin Mary and baby Jesus.

ABC/Harper Collins, Australia, 2018

When Freja and Tobias arrive in Claviers, it feels like home. The hilltop village is surrounded by olive groves, lavender fields and drifts of red poppies. The market square hides a world-famous patisserie and an antique merry-go-round. Pippin, their precocious young neighbour, and Vivi, the beautiful chef, fill their lives with chatter and laughter and love.

For a moment, the girl, the dog and the writer are happy. But a spate of criminal activity casts a cloud over the village. Freja is determined to solve the mystery and uncover the villain, but the closer she gets, the more impossible things seem to become…

Notable Book — 2019 CBCA Book of the Year Awards (Younger Readers)

Here and below you can see some photos of Claviers and the surrounding area of Provence. This is where the girl, the dog and the writer have their latest adventure.

(ABC/Harper Collins, 2019)

At last, Freja and her mother, Clementine, are together again. Tobias and Vivi are in love. And Lucerne, Freja's new home, is a paradise of snowy alps, sapphire lakes, white swans and delicious Swiss chocolate!

Everything seems perfect, until poor Lady P appears, bandaged from head to toe after a fall - or was it a push? Crimes break out across the city, all involving chocolate. Clementine doesn't seem her usual self. And still Freja has not solved the biggest mystery — who is Tobias Appleby?

All is revealed in the girl, the dog and the writer's final adventure.

Notable Book — 2020 CBCA Book of the Year Awards (Younger Readers)

Shortlisted for the 2020 Davitt Awards (Best Children’s Crime Novel)

‘Lights! Camera! Action!’

That’s my cue. My name’s Charlotte
but you can call me Lottie. I’m a movie star.

At least, that’s my thing this week.

Charlotte Perkins is seven years old
and can’t wait to grow up – if only she could
decide what she wanted to be!

Luckily, no dream is too big for little Lottie Perkins!

I'm wearing a glittering tutu and a sparkling tiara.
I pirouette. Three times.

And I don't even trip.

My name's Charlotte, but you can call me Lottie. I'm a ballerina.

At least, that's my thing this week.

Charlotte Perkins is seven years old and can't wait to grow up - if only she could decide what she wanted to be!

Luckily, no dream is too big for little Lottie Perkins!

The crowd cheers. Lights flash.

I sing into the microphone at the top of my lungs.

I'm rocking this song!

My name's Charlotte, but you can call me Lottie. I'm a pop singer.

At least, that's my thing this week.

Charlotte Perkins is seven years old and can't wait to grow up - if only she could decide what she wanted to be!

Luckily, no dream is too big for little Lottie Perkins!

Our class is learning the three times table.

But I'm not listening.

I'm designing a dress.

A fabulous dress for Mrs Dawson.

My name's Charlotte, but you can call me Lottie. I'm a fashion designer.

At least, that's my thing this week.

Charlotte Perkins is seven years old and can't wait to grow up - if only she could decide what she wanted to be!

Luckily, no dream is too big for little Lottie Perkins!

Olive has always dreamed of attending boarding school, but Mrs Groves' Boarding School for Naughty Boys, Talking Animals and Circus Performers is not what she expected. To tell the truth, dear reader, it is not what anyone expected!

The headmistress is completely bonkers and Pig McKenzie, school bully and all-round nasty swine, is determined to make Olive's life unbearable.

Olive, however, is clever, sweet and kind, and soon gains the loyalty and devotion of three rats, a short-sighted moose, a compulsive liar and a goose who faints at the sight of cherries.

But will friendship and wits be enough when Pig McKenzie puts his Truly Wicked Plan into gear? Or will Olive be cast out of Groves forever?

Shortlisted for the 2016 Indie Book Awards (Children’s)

Olive is gobsmacked. Basil Heffenhuffenheimer has just hiked out of the Black Forest in 1857 and into Mrs Groves' Boarding School for Naughty Boys, Talking Animals and Circus Performers. When he offers to take Olive into the past, she cannot resist a time-travelling adventure. After all, what could possibly go wrong? 
Plenty, dear reader. Plenty!
When Olive and her friends return to the present with a hungry dinosaur, an Elizabethan pirate and a scissor-happy servant boy, strange and disturbing things start to happen at Groves. Furthermore, 'new' student, Pigg McKenzie, is taking an uncomfortable interest in the dangers and disasters of time travel. Can Basil and Olive keep control of their adventures, or will the Time Slurp and a certain villainous pig have their wicked way?

This is the second book in the Olive of Groves series.

The Queen is coming to Mrs Groves' Boarding School for Naughty Boys, Talking Animals and Circus Performers for tea! Nothing, absolutely nothing, could possibly spoil this right royal moment.

Except for the return of scheming villain, Pig McKenzie ... and the arrival of a strange, harsh woman called Thistlebloom ... and the fact that the Inspector of Schools has promised to close the doors of Groves forever if the Queen's visit does not run smoothly ...

Oh deary, deary me! Nothing ever runs smoothly at Groves! Someone needs to take control. Someone clever, brave and practical. Someone with big ideas and an even bigger heart. Someone named Olive.

But does our beloved heroine have what it takes, or is this the end of Groves, once and for all?

This is the third book in the Olive of Groves series.

When Inge Maria arrives on the tiny island of Bornholm in Denmark to live with her grandmother, she’s not sure what to expect.

Her grandmother is stern, the people on the island are strange, and children are not allowed to run wild or express themselves the way they did back in Copenhagen – especially if you are a girl.

Inge Maria tries not to feel sorry for herself, but she misses her mama. And on top of everything else, mischief seems to have a way of finding her no matter how hard she tries to be good ...

But could it be that a bit of mischief is exactly what Inge Maria’s grandmother and the people of Bornholm need?

Winner of the 2014 NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Children’s Literature — The Patricia Wrightson Prize

Notable Book — 2014 CBCA Book of the Year Awards (Younger Readers)

This is the American edition of The Girl Who Brought Mischief.

My husband is a Dane and many years ago, we lived on a Christmas tree farm in Denmark. When I decided to write a story set in another time and culture, Denmark seemed the perfect setting. Beyond being familiar, it is a charming country that has so much of the fairy tale about it even today – snowy winters, delicious sweet treats, windmills, thatched cottages, animals living in barns and quaint folk dancing.

Setting my story way out on the Danish island of Bornholm enabled me to take my young character, Inge Maria, to an isolated place where her sense of loss and loneliness would be magnified. It also opened the way for delightful culture clashes. Inge Maria must learn to cope with the change from city life in Copenhagen with a free-spirited mother, to quiet island life amongst a conservative people.

Hans Christian Andersen was, of course, Danish. I read many of his fairy tales before and during the writing of When Mischief Came to Town. What an amazing range of characters, plot, humorous commentary and morals in his tales! They are truly inspiring.

Inge Maria Jensen, it seems, agrees with me. She loves reading Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales and often lives in a fantasy world where she converses with pigs and teapots and spoons. She longs to share the joy of stories with others. And her own story is a type of fairy tale in which she travels through loss and grief to a richer, happier life. 

This is an old photo of my two boys (now grown up) on a family holiday to Denmark in 2003. You can see the young Christmas trees in the background.

This is my husband showing our sons his childhood home in Dollerup, Denmark. 

When Mischief Came to Town was first released in Australia in 2013 under the title The Girl Who Brought Mischief.

This is me on my first day of school, a long, long time ago. I think I look a little like the girl on the cover of my Australian book.

Blue Weston’s life is spiralling out of control.

·  Her parents are sending her to boarding school next year.

·  Her mad twin brothers are building pig chariots in the back shed.

·  Her best friend has been abducted by zombies and replaced with a boy crazy tween.

·  And then there’s the drought that’s showing no signs of ending soon …

It’s New Year’s Day and Blue has resolved to keep a diary of the year’s events. It will be another hard year of dust storms and drought on her family’s farm – with the odd leech attack, rocket launch and bagpipe-loving pig thrown in just for fun.

Shortlisted for the 2011 Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards

Shortlisted for the 2012 West Australian Young Readers’ Book Award

First edition.

I’m going to be a bridesmaid.

Mat, Lynette and me.

Long, pink shiny dresses and flowers in our hair.

Leading Miss McKenzie down the aisle to disaster.

I think I’m going to puke …

When Blue’s favourite teacher announces she’s engaged, Blue thinks she must have lost her mind. Why would Miss McKenzie want to get married? Especially to someone called James Linley Welsh-Pearson!

Can Blue stop the wedding in time or will Miss McKenzie leave Hardbake Plains … forever?

Notable Book — 2013 CBCA Book of the Year Awards (Younger Readers)

First edition.

Blue Weston is on a mission

·  She’s starting Hardbake Plains’ first ever newspaper with Mat and Ben.

·  She’s determined not to like her new teacher, the Colonel.

·  And she’s trying to convince Miss McKenzie to come back from Scotland.

But things don’t go exactly as planned… And to make matters worse, her mum is dusting off the old boarding school uniform!

Can Blue get things back on track?

And boarding school? Her parents wouldn’t dare …

First edition.

Just the other day a wombat came into the classroom. It was cute to see. it squashed three xylophones and dug a hole in the carpet. We all love wombats.

Josie Simpson thinks Bungaloo Creek Public School is the best school in the world! Her teacher, Mr G, thinks the school is unique - whatever that means ...

Bungaloo Creek is a hilarious glimpse into the world of a one-room bush school.

Notable Book — 2002 CBCA Book of the Year Awards (Younger Readers)