childrens books
Ethicool Books is a children’s book publisher with a big mission. We want to create a generation of little superheroes who understand the world’s big issues and go out there and do something about them.
Our beautifully-illustrated, heartfelt stories will help your littles ones (or getting-big-ones) understand issues such as sustainability, climate change, ocean care, poverty, gender equality, and much more. All topics are explored in a moving and relatable way, and help start important conversations in bedrooms and loungerooms, world-wide. If you want your children to not only love and learn language, but love the world they’re in and want to make it a better place, they’ll be a story for them at Ethicool.
Our books are primarily for children aged 0-8, but they also make a great addition to your coffee table collection. They’re also a memorable gift for that special little someone in your life who you know is going to grow up and make a difference.
As a children’s book publisher, we also welcome submissions from authors and illustrators.
“Adventure on every page” is our promise at In The Book, and with a range of personalised children’s books (including an exclusive Disney license) as well as newspaper books and sports books, we like to think we deliver on that promise!
As well as our products, designed to encourage children to get into reading, we are genuinely passionate about encouraging reading from an early age, and we have an impressive stable of educational books to help kids learn, to go alongside our popular adventure books.
We have plenty of choice for adults too, from team-specific sports newspaper books, to personalised classic novels and lots more in between.
While living in Thailand, Jacinta Farragher found that snippets of quirky verse popped into her brain every time she had a massage.
Naturally, she wanted to explore this further and started having massages twice a week. Now she’s a children’s picture book author! Jacinta is a member of The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), Creative Kids Tales, and the Australian Society of Authors. She dedicates her time to writing and having massages.
Jacinta’s passion is writing fun picture books with messages that uplift and empower. She plans to spend the next few decades writing books that will inspire children and adults alike for generations to come. Jacinta’s debut picture book Joy’s Journey is an adventurous quest story about realising the joy is in the journey. This will soon be followed by a second book Joy’s Way – a fun story about doing things your own way.
Jane Smith is a Queensland librarian, author and freelance editor with a particular interest in history. Her books include the non-fiction ‘Australian Bushrangers’ series, the ‘Tommy Bell: Bushranger Boy’ and ‘Carly Mills, Pioneer Girl’ historical fiction series for children, as well as two books for adults: the biography Captain Starlight: The Strange but True Story of a Bushranger, Impostor and Murderer and Ship of Death. Three of Jane’s children’s books have been listed for significant Australian literature awards.
In her spare time, Jane enjoys reading, singing in a community choir, and having coffee and cake with friends at what they loosely call ‘Book Club’.
June was born in PNG to an Australian Dad and Bush Mekeo mother. Her early years were spent in Tasmania and after some nomadic university years lived mostly in Queensland. She now lives in Brisbane with her three older children (university and senior school), dear science genius hubby, two guinea pigs, a pet bird and several pet fish, as well as several guitars, a drum, two digeridoos and keyboard.
Books
June is the editor and contributor to two books, Under One Sky (2010) the anthology of the Licuala Writer’s Group and After Yasi, Finding the Smile Within (2013), a compilation of photographs and stories about using the creative arts to recover from cyclone Yasi. She had a collection of her photographs and poems for family included in an online book by the late Nell Arnold, called Discovering (2011).
In 2016 June successfully crowd funded $10,000 to publish Magic Fish Dreaming as well as winning as ASA emerging writers mentorship for picture book writing.
June’s latest book is Magic Fish Dreaming, a collection of poems written for five to eleven year olds. It takes readers on a poetry quest through Far North Queensland and encourages them to write their own poetry based on their environment and imagination.
Education
June has a PhD from the University of Sydney in writing empowerments and extensive experience as a ‘writer in community’ workshopping, dramaturging and performing. When she isn’t writing she is tutoring creative writers at QUT in the keystones program at the Oodgeroo unit, working on creative collaborations, walking in nature or reading. She maintains blogs on writing and life in Queensland.
Awards
June was honoured to receive an Australia Day Award in 2011 for five years of service to writing and youth empowerment in the Cassowary Coast, including mentoring young and community writers from all walks of life in writing their own poetry. She’s received a number of RADF and Australian council grants to facilitate a diverse range of writing projects.
Themes
The main themes of June’s picture books and YA novels in development are; discovery, migration, respect for nature, people and diversity, dreaming, creativity, compassion, and poetry.
Upcoming
June is booked on a panel at the Sandcliffe Festival in April 2017, sharing her ‘unique story’ and is currently designing library workshop, events and festival submissions to further the cause of poetry for children and children’s poets.
M. J. Gibbs has an innate curiosity about people and places when finding ideas for the stories and poems she writes. From ‘Booknook Blue’ in Maryborough and Kenmore, Brisbane to the Bookloft in Mapleton, Marg has reached out to children in local communities to bring a love of reading and story telling. The book clubs enabled her own four children and their friends a golden opportunity to connect, be creative and enjoy a bookish program involving craft, games and outings.
 Marg has published poetry in magazines and anthologies, ‘The Magic Fairy Wish’ and ‘Musical Christmas Tree’, ‘Alone in a Dark Room’, ‘Phantom Moon’, ‘The Hope Tree’ and ‘Art Room’ in the NSW School magazine. Her stories about the Brisbane flood have been enjoyed by many.
Her recent picture book called ‘Arriving Home’, about Maggie the Magpie Goose and Eric Echidna was well received in the community especially with the help of 9 local artists who illustrated it. Its message is clear – friendship, belonging and community.
‘Jasper’s Jumbled up Words’ is a sensitive and gentle picture book about a young boy who wants to be understood, which deals with the difficulties surrounding language development. Illustrated by Emma Stuart, this book was published in July 2020.
Penny Macoun was born in Sydney, Australia, and has been writing since when her story about a funnel web spider was printed in a school newsletter. Ever since, Penny has loved the ‘other worlds’ that words create, and hopes to continue to create these worlds for many years to come. Gorkle is her first book, and her second picture book, Rollo’s Wet Surprise, was published in 2021. When she is not writing or editing, Penny dabbles in various forms of visual arts and enjoys being in the garden.
Penny was a member of an amateur theatre for 9 years. During this time, she was a stage manager for children’s shows and standard plays, actor, prompt and committee member for three years, where she was front of house co-ordinator, newsletter editor and social secretary. When she’s not writing she is a casual primary school teacher.
Penny has also travelled extensively, having visited the UK, Europe, USA, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand and parts of Australia. She hopes to continue her exploration of the world when it is safe to do so.