Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds: Stories, Poetry, and Plays for Children by Various/CBCA NSW Eastern Beaches Sub-branch

Title: Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds: Stories, Poetry, and Plays for Children

Author: Various/CBCA NSW Eastern Beaches Sub-branch

Genre: Anthology

Publisher: CBCA NSW Eastern Beaches

Published: 1^st June 2021

Format: Paperback

Pages: 192

Price: $25.00

Synopsis: Wonder at the universe. Swim through oceans. Encounter lions. Venture into space. Delve into fairytales. Travel back in time. Face danger head-on.

Dip your toe or dive headfirst into an anthology of stories, poetry and plays by renowned creators including:

Sarah Davis, Ursula Dubosarsky, Mick Elliott, Kate Forsyth, Susanne Gervay, Margaret Hamilton, Tim Harris, Jacqueline Harvey, Libby Hathorn, Dub Leffler, Amelia McInerny, Alexa Moses, Belinda Murrell, One More Page Podcast Crew, Oliver Phommavanh, Aura Parker, Jasmine Seymour, Sue Whiting… and other quirky and wonderful authors and illustrators.

‘Bringing words, stories, images to the hearts and minds of young Australians is one of the most precious gifts we can give our children.’ – Her Excellency The Honourable Margaret Beazley AC QC, Governor of NSW and Mr Dennis Wilson, Patrons of the Children’s Book Council of Australia, NSW Branch.

~*~

In 2021, the CBCA NSW Eastern suburbs sub-branch put out this anthology, with submissions from many authors and creators, including a couple who are in my sub-branch on the Central Coast. The stories, plays and poems explore the CBCA Book Week theme from 2021 – Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds, and everyone had their own take on the theme.

This little book has been on my shelf for a couple of years – and I finally got to it recently, and really enjoyed seeing how different authors, illustrators and contributors tackled the theme. From dragons to moving house, a story about Hatshepsut and herstory instead of history, pirates, whales, and everything in between. Each story explores a moment – and they don’t always have complete endings, but each one works for what it is. We may not know how things turn out sometimes, but these ones are where the worlds converge and the character is going from one to the other, but there are also some that end the narrative, or that have a bit of silliness – like the One More Page play. The combination of silliness, joy, fantasy, and touches of seriousness show that there are lots of ways to have old worlds, new worlds, and other worlds.

Whether your world is historical, futuristic, or fantastical – everything is here. A new house can be a new world. A place you have never can be a new world or the other world. And history will always be the old world – whether you are a time traveller, or recounting the story about a pet or someone, or something from the past. And other worlds have so many possibilities – this aspect could easily slot into the old or new worlds as well, because these are other worlds to us. A unicorn is from the other world, or your other world could be a new city or country. So there is lots of crossover and interpretation here, and I loved all of it.

This is a great introduction to these authors if you haven’t encountered them before, and if you have, a brilliant extension of their work – like Kate Forsyth and Belinda Murrell. The stories are probably aimed at a middle grade level, into lower young adult, and I loved reading them. There were several where I wanted more because I wanted to know what happened next. I could see how these could potentially become a novel and found the extracts from longer works interesting too. This is such a fun book, and I devoured it. This is a fantastic book for readers aged eight and over, and I got it from the CBCA website. I hope people can still discover it and find the joy in it that I did.