Our thanks to those who were able to join us for our SLAV online Book Club on Thursday March 20th, 2025, to discuss the topic: Books Set In Melbourne

We asked our members to share their favourite books that are set in Melbourne.

We also held a discussion about how we are dealing with students requesting school libraries to purchase books that may contain content that is not suitable for all readers, particularly books popular on Book Tok.

As usual, we finished out session with attendees sharing what they have been reading lately.

Our next Online Book Club meeting is on Tuesday April 29th and the topic of conversation is ‘Enemies to Lovers’.

Disclaimer: The lists generated as a result of Book Club discussions are not, by any means, an exhaustive list of all titles or authors for each genre/category discussed. Nor will all titles be suitable for all libraries. We advise staff discretion when referencing these lists, to properly confirm individual title suitability for individual libraries, school and student’s needs. These are suggested titles only, shared by our members and inclusion on, or exclusion from, a list does not suggest SLAV endorsement or rejection of a title.

Strategies for dealing with requests for Book Tok/Controversial Books:

• Have the book but look at where it is located
• Put in senior fiction – staff reading
• A yr 9 – yr 12 section
• Have alerts in the catalog for certain books
• Use commonsense media and other sites to check out appropriateness of student requests
• Maybe put trigger warnings on the inside the front cover
• Put a MA sticker on the bac of the book and in the catalog keep it for year 10 and above.
• Keep most in a senior reads section
• Read the book first if unsure
• Biographies can often by quite explicit – how to handle?
• Have senior reads instead of senior fiction
• Call them real life stories with an MA sticker
• The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry by Ransom Riggs – good  for teens wanting non-romantasy

Books Set In Melbourne

Picture Books:

• Queenie -picture book – Melbourne zoo     - Corine Fenton
• Middle Grade:
• Sunshine on Vinegar Street by Karen Comer
• How To Bee by bren mcdribble
• My Australian story - Archer’s Melbourne Cup – Vashti farrer
• The Lost Sapphire by Belinda Murrel
• Six Summers of Tash and Leopold by Danielle Binks
• The Riding Gallery by Sally Murphy

Young Adult:

• Words in deep blue by Cath Crowley
• Gap year in ghost town by Michael Pryor
• Grace Notes by Karen Comer
• Graffiti moon Cath Crowley
• The runner by Robert Newton
• Future Girl by Ashphyxia
• Everything is changed by Nova Weetman
• Take three girls by Cath Crowley, Fiona Wood & Simmone Howell
• Inkflower by Suzie Zail
• Fleur Ferris – Risk, Wreck
• Beatle meets Destiny  by Gabrielle Williams
• The Guy, The Girl, The Artist and His Ex by Gabrielle Williams
• One Hundred Days by Alice Pung

Senior Fiction:

• The lost bookshop by Evie Woods
• Bearbrass : Imaging Early Melbourne by Robyn Annear
• The Corners of Melbourne Robyn Annear
• Adrift in Melbourne by Robyn Annear
• The Season by Helen Garner
• The Oslo by Oslao Davis (?)
• The Convent by Maureen McCarthy
• The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
• The Mix Up by Kylie Ladd
• A Routine Infidelity & A Dance With Murder by Elizabeth Coleman
• Tuesday Evenings With The Copeton Craft Resistance by Kate Solly
• The Paradise Heights Craft Story Stitch-Up by Kate Solly
• Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder by Kerryn Mayne
• Joy Moody Is Out Of Time by Kerryn Mayne
• The Hitwoman's Guide to Reducing Household Debt by Mark Mupotsa-Russell
• The Body Next Door by Zane Lovitt
• The Hummingbird Effect by Kate Mildenhall
• The Jack Irish series by Peter Temple
• The Miss Phyrne Fisher Mysteries by Kerry Greenwood
• Monkey Grip by Helen Garner
• The Glad Shout by Alice Robinson
• The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham
• Cairo by Chris Womersley
• Unbury the Dead by Fiona Hardy
• Three Boys Gone by Mark Smith

What has everyone been reading?

• Reader Come Home by Maryanne Wolf
• Tussock by Elizabeth Pulford
• The Season Helen Garner
• The Thrill Of It by Mandy Beaumont
• Three Boys Gone by Mark Smith
• Five Seasons in Seoul by Christine Nwell
• Laughter is the best ending by Maryam Master
• The glass girl by Kathryn Glasgow
• Creating a reading culture by Margaret Merga
• Thunderhead by Sophie Beer
• The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah
• The Dictionary of Lost Words & The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams