Books for Children

Picture books:

A BALLOON FOR GRANDAD

A wonderful book full of colourful language and imagery. An exciting and inspiring experience.
Five to Eleven Magazine

Beautifully presented and filled with genuine feeling. A lovely confidence builder.
Carousel

A classic that shows the variety and richness of the Earth and its people.
Review Round up

It won my heart.
Bookland

The lilting, evocative text will charm young listeners. Heart-warming.
Booklist

Adults and children alike will appreciate the surprising treatment of what seems to be, at first, a loss.
Publishers weekly

A nicely cadenced story. A satisfying picture book.
The Kirkus Review

Young readers will be well entertained by this colourful and affectionate picture book where the world is made to seem both small and also infinitely various, containing as much exotic detail as any infant could ever imagine.
Books for your Children

Nigel Gray's lyrical text makes this book a real pleasure.
The Reading Teacher

A stunning picture book.
Letterbox Library

A delightful book.
Contact

A tender, loving story. A charming picture book.
Bend Reviews

Highly recommended.
Madison Metropolitan

Sensitively told.
Multicultural Guide to Children's books

A COUNTRY FAR AWAY

An extraordinary book.
Publishers Weekly

This unusual, sensitive book really brings out our shared human experiences, regardless of race.
Child Education

A winner. What I liked about the book was that each kid's life seems far more interesting and exciting than the other's, and it's a hook that I can't see a young reader getting off.
Times Educational Supplement

Gray understands that children are capable of insight and compassion, even into complex issues.
The Irish Times

Conveys the most complicated ideas effortlessly.
Mother

Terrific.
Catholic Library World

A unique book.
Focus

Never condescends or patronises.
Five Owls

Simple in concept, yet rich in execution.
Booklist

An ingenious and worthwhile idea.
The School Librarian

A wonderful picture book. A welcome addition to the collection.
Nassau Library System

Well executed and intriguing.
Junior Bookshelf

Unique among picture books, it avoids didacticism while joyfully celebrating the kinship of human cultures.
Review

This book covers a portion of the early social studies curriculum far better than any textbook.
Times Herald

There is no sense that one life is better than the other, rather that they are the same tapestry rewoven with a slightly different thread.
Parents Magazine

A wonderful book.
Wings

Wow! The possibilities for follow-up in the classroom seem endless. Excellent.
Maine Collection

Cleverly done.
Lindsay Mackie

Unusual and thought-provoking.
Kent & Sussex Courier

A WALK WITH GRANNY

An unusual, sensitive story.
Books for Kids

AND KANGAROO PLAYED HIS DIDGERIDOO

Impressive. A great new Aussie book. Remarkable. A great bedtime treat.
Kids in Brisbane

Another delightful children's book by much-loved West Australian author Nigel Gray. The text is a real treat.
Down to Earth

A rollicking read-along picture book.
Sunshine Coast Sunday

A sensational picture book. Guaranteed to become a great Australian classic.
Review

It's a great story and it's good fun.
Manning River Times

ANNA'S GHOST

A delightful picture book.
Parents Magazine

Gentle, simple, straightforward.
Magpies

Recommended for school and public libraries and ghost-lovers everywhere.
Reading Time

Amusing. Recommended.
Min. of Education

A fun picture book. Just the tonic.
Herald Sun

DANIEL THE DREAMER

Once in a while a book appears that has that something extra, that special quality which says, 'Read me'. Such books often speak from and to the heart. They usually possess a number of layers of meanings and can be enjoyed at each level. They become the favourites and are read again and again, often until the child knows the story by heart. Daniel the Dreamer is that sort of book. The subtle text speaks of the importance of dreams and ideals. Gray writes superbly. His choice of words, his ability to describe a scene or situation simply yet meaningfully and his gentle, humorous way of exploring significant themes mark him as an outstanding writer.
Cathryn Crowe, Courier Mail

A delightful new children's book. It's subtle message has been beautifully presented in a rare harmony between writer and illustrator that captures the imagination of young and old alike.
The Western Review

A valuable parable.
The West Australian

DELIGHTFUL DELILAH

Funny and truthful. A total delight.
The Queensland Times

A delightful children's book.
Herald Sun

Highly recommended.
Classroom

Humorous and truthful. Absolutely delightful.
Sunday Times

An affectionate and funny story. Nigel Gray's clever narrative provides amusement for both adults and children.
The Age

A heart-warming delectable story that pleads to be read again and again.
Magpies

Nigel Gray has a wonderful line in stories from the child's viewpoint. This is delightful.
Reading Time

Highly recommended.
Primary Focus

DR FRANK'S MONSTER

A breezy, enjoyable style. A good book for the reader who has just started to read independently.
Magpies

This story is told in simple but extremely clever language. A great yarn.

Impeccable text. An irresistible invitation to reading.
Australian Bookseller

Crazy humour, energy and word play make this a winner.
Primary Focus

This book confronts human feeling in a fun way. The author has cleverly used word patterns which makes this a good resource in the language area. Recommended.
Review

FLY

A delight to read aloud. The audience will want to hear it again and again. The story is told with exuberance and panache. The whole book jumps with joy and play.
Australian Book Review

An exuberant, humorous picture book to delight young readers. A successful book to read aloud with appealing rhymes, easy rhythms and a wicked sense of fun.
Children's Book Council

The sort of humour that will appeal to young children.
The Courier

This book is cool.
Family Circle

A humorous story - where we all recognise ourselves.
Lollipops

A good book to help the littlies appreciate rhyme and rhythm. A big impact picture book.
The Singing Tree

An effective book, wonderful for beginning readers, and sure to bring a smile to all ages.
Dept. of Education

The kids will get a buzz out of this one.
Parents Magazine

Full of special insights.
The Post

FULL HOUSE

I loved this book. The story is simple yet amusing and the unexpected ending is sure to bring a smile.
Lollipops

A gentle little story. An enjoyable sharing experience.
Magpies

A charming romp.
Children's Book Council

Sure to become a favourite.
Bookphile

A delightful picture book.
Scan

Young children will delight in this simple cumulative story. Highly recommended.
Primary Focus

I'LL TAKE YOU TO MRS COLE

One of the most outstanding children's books for some time.
The Financial Times

A superbly imaginative inner-city story.
The Listener

Gray's story is sympathetic, humorous and a rollicking read-aloud.
Publisher's Weekly

A marvellous combination of words and pictures that goes way beyond any age barriers. the message has an appeal that is both wide and universal. There is a great degree of warmth and genuine affection in the story. One of the best books I have had the pleasure of reading for quite some time. This book stands head and shoulders above the rest. A positive feast of delight.
Burnley Express

Innovative and inspirational, it is a delightfully child-centred book.
British Book News

One of the most thoughtful and amusing children's books available.
Northampton Echo

A lively and entertaining picture book.
The Bookseller

It's not often that the text of a picture book can be singled out for praise, but Nigel Gray's could stand on its own.
The Signal

A touching tale. Excellent.
Children's Book News

Children enjoy the writing, they enjoy the characterisation, they enjoy the story, and they enjoy sharing a unique imaginative experience.
William Jordan

IT'LL ALL COME OUT IN THE WASH

The light touch, the child-oriented message, and the element of disaster-humour that so appeals to young children contribute to a pleasant read-aloud story.
Bulletin for the Centre for Children's books

The little girl learns. So does the mother. So do our children. And so do we. And that is a fine arrangement, is it not?
The jersey Journal

A wonderfully amusing book.
The Foothills Trader

Kids really respond to this book.
Prineville Newspaper

A delightful book.
Jackson Daily News

JAKE AND THE MERMAID

Love triumphs amidst a plethora of jokes based on word play. A fun picture book.
Bookphile

This could well become a cult book. Wry, laconic, ironic, punny, and very very clever. Lots of fun.
Reading Time

Witty and colourful.
Primary Focus

JUST THE RIGHT STRIPES

A very friendly book. A gentle story. The humour is subtle.
Magpies

An absolute delight.
The Courier

KEEP ON CHOMPING!

An enjoyable and amusing read.
Lynda Jones

LITTLE BEAR'S GRANDAD

A charming story. A touching tale tackled very sensitively. The story may well bring a tear to even the most adult eyes.
Youth in Mind

A thoughtfully written text. A profoundly moving book.
Books for Kids

A sensitive, gentle story.
School Librarian

I am in tears every time I read it.
Daily Telegraph

LITTLE PIG'S TALE

The best picture book that I've seen for ages.
Bob Graham

OLIVER TWIST FINDS A HOME

An ideal children's picture book.
The Age

A book to be treasured.
Reading Time

PIGS CAN'T FLY

A valuable addition to any classroom or personal book collection.
School Librarian

RUNNING AWAY FROM HOME

A delightful picture book.
Primary Focus

It has a childhood theme that could be everyone's story. Spellbound six- and seven-year-olds will nod approval.
Naomi Lewis, Evening Standard

This will strike a cord with all under fives.
Parents Magazine

A gentle, humorous story.
The Rattler

A super picture book.
The Mail

The text is simple and easy to read but uses exciting language. Highly recommended.
Dept. of Education

A sensitive study of families and feelings. Recommended.
Magpies

SUN, SEA, CRAB AND ME

A delightful way to learn that reading can be fun. Highly recommended.
Magpies

A book that will become a favourite.
Fremantle Herald

THE DOG SHOW

Gray's talent for combining a meaningful storyline, memorable characters and expressive language are in evidence, along with his hallmark humour. His ability to communicate important messages to the young within the framework of a satisfying story marks him as an exceptional children's writer. Perceptive and witty, and the sense of spontaneity and chaos which pervades the book is most appealing.
Cathryn Crowe, Courier Mail

A charming tale.
Canberra Times

Nigel Gray's compassion for the 'underdog' is evident in the surprise ending of this delightful book.
Review

THE FROG PRINCE

Quirky. Fantastic.
The Echo

Witty.
Book News

Highly recommended as a springboard for encouraging student writing, or for the sheer pleasure of a good laugh.
Primary Focus

A wicked sense of fun.
Sunday Times

Readers will appreciate the humour in this enjoyable quirky tale.
The Examiner

A book to delight young and old. It gives an old fairy tale a new twist with hilarious results.
The West Australian

I can particularly recommend the Frog Prince. Excellent.
Write Away

Being a non-conformist with a healthy sense of humour, Nigel Gray moulds the storyline, introducing many imaginative and amusing elements. Relaxed and funny, positive and stimulating, it will entertain and extend young readers.
The Courier Mail

THE GROCER'S DAUGHTER

Wonderful rhythm. The story just gallops away. It will be read and re-read.
Reading Time

Wicked humour and rollicking verse.
Children's Book Council

A funny, frantic verse story.
New Englander

Good fun. I loved it.
Glenise Meldrum

THE ONE AND ONLY ROBIN HOOD

Preserves and invigorates the timeless story of Robin Hood.
Publisher's Weekly

A gleeful romp. An enjoyable opportunity for listener participation, this will be a hit.
Review

Highly original. An ideal story for children and adults to enjoy together.
Review

For children and young adults:

PRIVATE EYE OF NEW YORK

Good. Real good. So read it!
Books for your Children

The humour will be greeted with joy by any eight- or nine-year -old. It will be enjoyed by many.
School Librarian

Fast-moving and highly entertaining. A very enjoyable read.
Child Education

CARROT TOP

Zestful, true-to-life stories, ideal for reading aloud.
Junior Bookshelf

Nigel Gray has a good ear for dialogue and for everyday situations and has written a book that would be enjoyed by any experienced reader from seven upwards.
Books for Keeps

BLACK HARVEST

A powerful play. It will read superbly well in class and, later, generate original project work.
Times Educational Supplement

NIGHT MUSIC

This very fine novel is impelling for its honesty and lack of sensationalism. If you decide to read it, you will be rewarded with a great new Australian novel
Rippa Reading

A fast-paced story of courage, commitment and love. Exciting, funny, thought-provoking and honest. Down to Earth Nigel Gray writes directly to an audience he clearly understands and enjoys. Enthused readers will love this novel for the same reasons tired critics will hate it. Night Music contains all of the humour, vitality, compassion, perception and excitement one hopes to find in a good book for teenagers.
Glyn Parry

A stunning novel for older readers.
Magpies

SHOTS

Nigel Gray performs that most difficult of feats: he describes the impact of violent emotion with considerable intensity while neither glamorising nor minimizing its effect. Shots is a tightly-written and convincing story. It is a novel for our times.
Times Educational Supplement

I would thoroughly recommend this book. It is fast-moving and well-written.
East Anglian Daily Times

An excellent story.
The Book Exchange

The story is exciting, saying many of the things that ought to be said about racism.
New Statesman

It is well-written and excellently-paced and provides an interesting and entertaining read.
Letchworth Citizen

Gray is providing a crucial service for 11- to 14-year-olds with his intelligent and cleverly constructed novels.
Northampton Echo

There are poignant moments, and the inter-racial encounters are finely described.
Recent Children's Fiction

What emerges is the warmth, vitality and resourcefulness of the community of the street and the beauty that children find in the midst of ugliness and decay. Recommended.
Media Review

This fast-moving, well-written story may well bear a close resemblance to the real lives that some of our young people live.
Junior Bookshelf

A powerful, fast-moving novel. A great deal of action and excitement.
Warminster Journal

This is a brilliant book. It certainly kept me glued to the pages.
Mia Mountain (aged 14)

THE DESERTER

Believable and thrilling.
Leila Berg

While it is a good, exciting read, it raises several moral issues.
The Guardian

An exciting book with an unusual plot.
Tops TV Magazine

An appealing and useful novel. The first person narrative has an attractive freshness, and some punchy episodes allow a fine balance between reality and reassurance.
Books for Keeps

Closer to the experience of vast numbers of young people today than books that project a cosy and remote middle-class world. A good adventure story, it contains some gripping descriptive passages.
Northampton Echo

An interesting book. Exciting.
Daily Star

Behind the fast-paced action are all the problems of taking responsibility for one's own actions which were raised in the War Crimes trials.
The Birmingham Post

Books for Adults

STRANGERS and SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD

Highly praised by the likes of Vonnegut, Bradbury and Berger, Gray's fiction is tough and uncompromising. Strangers is an epistolary novel of intimacy and disconnection. No one writes letters as lyrically honest or self-lacerating as these, of course, but the effect is moving and provocative. Gray's short stories are equally rivetting.
Murray Waldren - The Weekend Australian

I fell in love with Nigel Gray's epistolary novel, Strangers. It is a deceptively simple form, and Gray elegantly handles the difficulties that arise. The result is a wonderful novel. Of Happy Families, another of Gray's works, John Berger has written: Nigel Gray is an authentic and rare writer. That is to say, what he has lived and what he has seen pursues him until he has told it; and what he has to tell, although familiar to millions, is ignored in most books. Hence his heroism. High praise indeed, praise I can only echo for both Strangers, and Skeleton in the Cupboard. There is a compassionate knowledge about life and living in these works, a wisdom of searing honesty which is eloquently literary but, at the same time, down-to-earth and approachable.
Donna Lee Brien – Imago

Mercifully Nigel Gray is not a fashionable writer. He is more important, a writer of integrity who knows how to tell a story. He is not interested in facades but in what goes on behind them, not in the rich and famous but in ordinary people, the ways in which they live, enjoy themselves, survive and refuse to let the power of others or their own powerlessness stupefy them or take away their dignity. Nor does he pay tribute to theories about writing. He remains his own man, averting his gaze from the beaten track, hating injustice and brutality and celebrating a humanity often achieved against the odds.
Gray feels and means everything he writes and is not afraid to face facts, as the sharp accuracy, understatement and wit of his writing makes clear. But because he is able to suggest the ways in which individual lives fit into the tragi-comedy of our times his stories fill a wide, sometimes epic canvas even as they celebrate the individual's power to be him/herself. In an age in which so many of us live by slogans, shouting identical syllables in unison, he celebrates the eccentric and unusual.
Sister Veronica Brady

Skeleton in the Cupboard is a set of short stories, sometimes sombre, sometimes poignant, and always serious in underlying themes. Gray has the capacity to construct a short narrative in the classic de Maupassant way, so that the reader is drawn irresistibly into the narrative and intrigued by the characters, until usually the jaws of the story snap shut in the last lines, suddenly shifting the perspective in a way that enforces reinterpretation of the piece. He is naturally curious about people, which is surely the fiction-writer's sine qua non, and he is not afraid to take on the 'big themes' of death, mental illness and loneliness. Always, the perspective is kindly and communitarian, which gives a positive and restorative tone to the stories.
Strangers is a comic novel written in epistolary form. A curmudgeonly and complacent Englishman corresponds with a feisty Australian woman, and the humour is generated from incongruities, missed communication, and underlying but paradoxical affinity. There is an element of David Lodge in the writing, and the book is very funny.
Nigel Gray's fiction has, I think been undervalued by publishers. His very productiveness and fluency is misleading. In fact he is a thoroughly professional and painstaking writer whose works across the board show an amazing range, stylistically and in terms of subtle human understanding. I think posterity will be kinder to Nigel Gray than the current publishing circuit, which too often clutches at short-term profit and modish fashion. Nigel Gray is a serious and enduring writer, who deserves celebrity status for his substantial and fine output.
Professor R S White

The excellence is there for all to admire. Some of the work is poised and breathtakingly moving and the depth of his experience reverberates through his writing. Nigel Gray comes across in his raw honest writing as hugely likeable with a massive capacity for love.
The West Australian

Strangers has everything. It's gutsy, varied, direct and marvellously well written – full of insights and quite beautiful at times. It deserves a good readership.
Peter Cushing

Skeleton in the Cupboard is a collection of short stories with some very strong pieces that explore a range of human emotions. Nigel Gray examines life in terms of small incidents but manages to interweave into the lives of his characters a larger sense of social history. Written with a strong sense of an ending, these stories carry the reader with their narrative rhythm and psychological insights into human behaviour. The narrative point of view is engaging, tolerant and compassionate but never sentimental.
Prof. Vijay Mishra, Judges’ report, WA Premier’s Book Awards

LIFE SENTENCE

The stories are strong and beautifully made. I live in a ditch excavated through mountains of no doubt very good stuff people want me to read. One glance at Nigel Gray's work, though, was enough to hook me. I had no choice but to read for pleasure. I hadn't done that for years. What happens to him next seems a very fair test of the literary world's responsiveness to excellence as contrasted with celebrity.
Kurt Vonnegut.

Gray's world is that of the young unemployed in a declining capitalist society who, finding themselves rejected, unwanted, have somehow to express their sense of both psychic and actual loss. His outrage at this, his refusal either to condemn or condone the often violent action that results is wholly admirable and sensitively articulated. While the more anecdotal stories may be artistically the most successful, the longer and more ambitious ones are what remain longest in one's memory. The terrible truth that nice, amiable people prevent the niceness and amiability of others through their way of life is brought home to us with an exemplary honesty that makes me anxious to read more fiction by Nigel Gray.
The Listener.

These are stories about the complexities of human relationships; about youth and childhood, and the hurt and damage inflicted on the young and the vulnerable. Their strongest characteristic, taken collectively, is their concern and compassion, and some of them are almost unbearably painful. Written in an inimitable style; laconic; unsentimental; at times caustically humorous; these stories have a disconcerting individualness about them. They make compulsive reading.
Donal MacAmhlaigh.

I read it more or less at a sitting, and found the stories enviably brilliant: very vivid, with biting dialogue and descriptions, and very firm line.
Peter Vansittart.

Most of the stories make disturbing reading. But that is only part of the picture because they are enlivened by the author's deadpan humour and a shrewd perception of people that makes the bleakness of his vision more tolerable. "Hello Baker" is a gem of a story, while "Saturday Night Out" says as much as Sillitoe ever did about urban working-class life in its deprivation and ugliness.
The Irish Post.

The colloquial conversations and intimate details make these stories compelling reading, and the earthy humour is typical of the street lads who people them. We need writers like Nigel Gray.
The Weekend Australian.

The book is the work of a polished commercial writer. He is certainly a conscientious technician. Not a word is wasted in his stories and their controlled and balanced structures are a model for any aspirant to the short story craft. One could not fault Gray's writing on the technical level. One can only admire its accomplishment.
Australian Book Review.

HAPPY FAMILIES

An important novel. Gray's vision is as bleak as Hardy's, the life of his hero as blighted as Jude's. This brutal novel is also a work of tenderness. Stylistically more ambitious than Life Sentence, Happy Families retains that same integrity. And integrity is the right word. It flies like a battered standard over the ruination depicted, recording a loss, and offering a warning to the future.
New Statesman.

There is a graphic urgency about the descriptions: the accounts of people at the end of their tether are quite devastating. Mr Gray is a writer of exceptional power, and his evocation of the blood-guts-and-spunk side of emotional trauma is practically Lawrentian -- in fact several steps further than Lawrence got -- particularly as it is contrasted by odd idyllic interludes. An angry, impressive novel.
Encounter.

What stuns one about this book is its passionate truthfulness. He uses small cameos of biting clarity, interweaving the past and present into an even genetic cycle, and although a dark book that has clearly pursued its writer like it pursues its reader, the search for light is there. Mr Gray has a rare talent.
The Sunday Tribune

It is strangely compelling -- a fly on the wall view of human misery seen with tenderness and compassion.
British Book News.

The novel is written in a keen-edged, cutting style which lays bare the protagonist's suffering in a clinical and utterly convincing way. Its literary style is a major triumph. Nigel Gray has found a mature and masterly voice.
Evening Telegraph

Nigel Gray is an authentic and rare writer. That is to say, what he has lived and what he has seen pursues him until he has told it; and what he has to tell, although familiar to millions, is ignored in most books. Hence his heroism. This novel ought to be read widely, and for a long time.
John Berger.

Nigel Gray writes with the compassion of a saint and the practicality of a plumber. He is not one of the pseudo-sages who mystify suffering and then shake their heads over it in bewildered despair. He made this story so true to life so that we could see how life could be different.
Edward Bond.

Nigel Gray is a writer of great force and real moral power.
Malcolm Bradbury.

Happy Families is not a conventional novel. The writer's attitudes, beliefs, criteria are not the usual ones, even among writers who attempt to cover the same ground. The writing is powerful but pure, its strength seeming to come from experience and observation and not mediated through the study and assimilation of other fiction. Nigel Gray can write.
The Irish Press.

THE WORST OF TIMES

I congratulate Barnes and Noble with all my heart for publishing The Worst of Times by Nigel Gray. I would do so no matter what of his they published, since I have long been an admirer of his writing and his superhuman calm when describing the hardships inflicted on the British working class by greed and carelessness. He is a superb historian of what has really mattered to at least half of his society during most of this century, in his fiction as well as his reportage, and so is an invaluable colleague for anyone who wants to know what life is really like before formulating plans to make it better.
Kurt Vonnegut

A revelation. A must for even the most bare book collection.
Horncastle Standard

THE SILENT MAJORITY

A good book to have: in its experience, its comments and its analysis.
Raymond Williams, Times Higher Literary Supplement

Witty, provocative and a delight to read. Nigel Gray has a very perceptive pen.
Time Out

Disarmingly honest, and fresh in style.
David Lodge, Birmingham Post

A fine work, touched with humour, compassion and a righteous anger.
Tribune

Compulsive reading. A book that really is difficult to put down. Subtle, perceptive and convincing.
Morning Star

COME CLOSE

The poems are tense with passion and reason. Nigel Gray writes sane poems for a mad world.
Edward Bond