On this page you can find information about our junior fiction titles, for readers from about 7-10 and who no longer read chapter books, but still enjoy illustrations in their reading. We debuted this list in 2021 and have now published four junior fiction titles.
2025
Escape from Sherwood, by Beattie Alvarez, with illustrations by David Allan, published by Christmas Press, November 2025 ISBN: 9780648815495, RRP $17.99
About the book:
Michael Robins has a new game. It’s cool. It’s retro. It has bows and arrows, an evil king and something that he can see out of the corner of his eye.
A chance glitch and a child’s sticky fingers finds Michael and his friends sucked inside the computer where the game is reality and The Master is about to reset the program.
Time is running out. Complete the levels or be deleted.
With an unusual setting, great pace, and vivid characters, this short novel is a gripping page-turner for readers aged 8-11.
About the author:
The most important thing about Beattie Alvarez is that she’s a reader. She reads while she cooks, eats and showers, but NOT in bed. This is mainly due to the fact that she can’t put the book down — just one more chapter, and one after that and one after that until the book is finished and the sun is rising. When she’s not reading, she’s a writer, illustrator, editor, graphic designer, toy shop owner and dragon maker. She has over half a dozen books with her name on the cover as an editor and is half of the creative duo Phoebe McArthur (author of the three Lucy Newton chapter books and middle-grade novel Charlie Chaplin: The Usual Suspect, also published by Christmas Press). As well, she’s had several short stories published in various places.
About the illustrator:
David Allan is an illustrator and artist whose first picture book, Two Trickster Tales from Russia (retold by Sophie Masson) was published by Christmas Press in 2013. Since then, he has illustrated other picture books, as well as short story anthologies, junior fiction books and storybooks for reading programs. His work is in private and public collections, and he has participated in solo and group exhibitions.
2024:
Leaf Letters, written and illustrated by Lorena Carrington, ISBN 9780645378887, 96 pages, RRP $16.99, published July 2024.
Nine-year-old Hazel Bird is happiest on her own, photographing the tiny wild worlds in her neighbourhood bushland. But then she meets Cole, a boy with a hundred pockets and a strange and marvellous way of talking. Together they find hidden treasure and a handwritten book of secret codes…
Can you help them solve the puzzles and discover the mysterious child who buried it so many years ago?
Written and illustrated by Lorena Carrington, this is a unique, interactive story for young readers told in words and pictures, with coded messages to decipher and mysteries to solve.
Read reviews of the book here and here and here.
About the author-illustrator
Lorena Carrington is an illustrator and writer with a background in fine arts, photography and design. She has worked on story collections, anthologies and picture books, and has also created a number of cover illustrations and designs. Her most recent book, Satin (with text by Sophie Masson) was published in 2023 by MidnightSun Publishing, and was a Notable Book in the 2024 CBCA Awards.
She is the recipient of the 2020 Australian Fairy Tale Society award, for her “outstanding contribution to the field of Australian Fairy Tales” and a May Gibbs Creative Time Fellowship for 2023.
Leaf Letters is her first junior novel.
2022:
A Very Special Moon Mission, written by Rebecca Fung, illustrated by David Allan, ISBN 9780645378801, RRP $15.99, published July 2022
Phoebe and Elliott are space-mad best friends but Julia, the unpopular new girl at school, has tagged along with them on them on a visit to the local Space Station. There, they meet the three astronauts competing to be the first woman on the moon, and they’re also introduced to the magnificent rocket known as The Obsession, and its know-all super computer IMP. But when they start the rocket without meaning to, and IMP malfunctions, the adventure takes a real turn for the unexpected! Sure, a moon mission is great: but how do you get back to Earth? Written with Rebecca Fung’s characteristic verve and humour, this is a really fun read for young readers 6-9, illustrated with lively pictures by David Allan.
Read a review of the book here.
Author Rebecca Fung works and lives in Sydney, Australia. She loves to write children’s fiction and several of those stories have been published in Christmas Press anthologies Once Upon a Christmas, A Toy Christmas and A Christmas Menagerie. Her first book, Princess Hayley’s Comet (illustrated by Kathy Creamer) was first published in print by Christmas Press in 2018, with an audio book edition published in 2021. A Very Special Moon Mission is her second book.
Illustrator David Allan’s first picture book, Two Trickster Tales from Russia(retold by Sophie Masson) was published by Christmas Press in 2013. His second picture book, Two Tales of Twins from Ancient Greece and Rome(retold by Ursula Dubosarsky) was listed in Good Reading Magazine’s Best Books of 2014. He has also illustrated Two Tengu Tales from Japan(retold by Duncan Ball, 2015) and Two Enchanted Tales from Old China (retold by Gabrielle Wang, 2017), and the chapterbook Petal and the Really Hard Riddle, written by Kathryn England (2018), all published by Christmas Press. He has also illustrated for storybooks and anthologies, including The Stuff of Tales, published by Arts North West. David’s work is in private and public collections and he has exhibited artworks in both solo and group shows. He lives in the New England region of NSW.
2021:
Fil and Harry, by Jenny Blackford, illustrated by Kristin Devine, ISBN: 9780648815402, RRP: $15.99, published May 2021
Fil always suspected that her cat Harry could talk if he really tried. Sometimes she even dreamed about it. But it was still a shock when he did start talking, on the worst afternoon of her life – or one of them. She seemed to be having a lot of them lately.
Her friend Kirsten had ignored her all day at school, again, after spending the weekend at her place. Harry told her that her friend Kirsten was “selfishness personified”, and maybe he was right.
Things got worse after that. Grandma painted Fil’s older brother’s bedroom walls black, escalating tensions with Fil and Stephen’s stepmother Elspeth, who tried far too hard. And Kirsten soon showed her true colours, making Fil’s life even more difficult…
Harry was the only one in the family who knew the way out of the tangle.
Fresh, lively junior fiction by acclaimed author, Jenny Blackford, winner of the 2020 Davitt Award for Best Children’s Crime Novel, with fabulous pictures by emerging illustrator Kristin Devine, winner of the 2019 New England Illustration prize.
Read a review of the book here.
Read an interview with the author here and an interview with the illustrator here.
About the author
Jenny loves writing for kids, and often contributes poems and stories to The School Magazine. Her awards include the Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Poetry in 2017, and two first prizes in the Humorous Verse section of the Henry Lawson prizes.
Her previous novel from Christmas Press (in the Eagle Books imprint) was The Girl in the Mirror, a spidery, ghostly middle-grade mystery. It won the 2020 Davitt Award for Best Children’s Crime Novel.
Jenny lives in sunny Newcastle. She loves cats so much that she wrote a whole tiny book of cat poems, called The Duties of a Cat(Pitt Street Poetry) Her Ragdoll cat Felix has her twisted around his furry little paw. Now and then she dreams that he can talk.
About the illustrator:
Kristin Devine is an artist and illustrator from the New England region of NSW Australia. She grew up in the small town of Inverell with her parents, three sisters and a veritable menagerie of pets. She has a deep fascination with the natural world and loves to explore intricate specimens of flora and fauna through her drawings. In 2019, she won first prize in the New England Illustration Prize, a national award for illustrators at all stages of their careers. Fil and Harry is the first children’s novel she has illustrated.
Christmas Press 