Cirrus@Austlit

'One of the many benefits of attending biennial International Board of Books for Young People (IBBY) Congresses in different countries, hosted by national sections, is meeting and befriending those engaged in book promotion all over the world and discovering how similar we are, despite our cultural differences. Doris Breitmoser has worked for The Association for Children's and Youth Literature (AKJ) Arbeitkreis fur Jugenliteratur for twenty years and has been its director since 2002. We met at the IBBY Congress in Santiago, Spain in 2010, again in 2014 in Mexico City, and most recently in 2016 in Auckland , NZ. Doris's work with AKJ is truly inspiring and so I share it with you here.' (Introduction)

'I woke to the sound of a voice pleading, high-pitched and urgent. I listened with my whole body. The man's voice was coming from the apartment above. Or was it below? I couldn't be sure. In the six days I'd been staying with my father I hadn't heard much from the other apartments

The microwave in the kitchenette read 2:08 am.'

'The argument accelerates, Sam's interest increases and, one crutches, he painfully makes his way to the window to see a man hanging bu his fingers from the balcony rail of the next apartment over ... and watches while a man in black prises each finger from the rail. Even worse, is the knowledge that the man in black has seen Sam watching him and is aware that Sam has taken a photo of him with his phone.' (Introduction)

Robert Newton is a firefighter who writes like an angel. It seems that these two jobs - firey and YA novelist - are very different, one physical and communal and the other solitary, but Newton describes them as actually being alike. They are simpatico in their essence. Both allow for the unexpected.'  (Introduction)

'Baby Ways, a board book for the State Library of Western Australia's Better Beginnings Family Literacy Program, celebrated its tenth birthday in 2016.' (Introduction)

'Golden Legacy is the story of the rise and, almost, fall of an icon of children's book publishing. But t is more than that. It is a story of business acumen highlighting a model that thrived for many years through the dedication to its initial principles allied to an ability to recognise and act upon changing societal patterns.' (Introduction)