A charming, heartfelt middle-grade novel about a time when everything is changing, and a girl who’s trying to make sense of it all.

ALL THE LITTLE TRICKY THINGS
by Karys McEwen
Text Publishing Australia, May 2022

It’s the start of the summer holidays and eleven-year-old Bertie is worried. Next year she’s going to a high school in the city, while all her friends stay behind in Merri, the small town she’s lived in all her life. To help her feel better prepared for high school, her best friend, Claire, makes a list of eleven tasks Bertie has to complete over the summer. They start working through the list together, but the tasks begin to reveal some of the cracks in their friendship. Now Bertie’s not even sure she’ll have one friend by the end of the summer.

Karys McEwen is the current president of the Victorian branch of the Children’s Book Council of Australia. She is also a school librarian, and she is passionate about the role libraries and literature play in the wellbeing of young people. She has been a columnist for Books+Publishing and her work has appeared in library journals such as FYI, Synergy and Connections. ALL THE LITTLE TRICKY THINGS is her debut middle-grade novel.