Big news: I am absolutely thrilled to announce that my historical novel for middle-grade readers, Bold Ben Hall (Walker Books), has been shortlisted for the 2025 NSW History Awards, in the Young People’s Category.
Such exciting news and such lovely and delightfully unexpected recognition for this novel which I so much enjoyed writing and researching!
Thank you so much to the judges and the State Library, and congratulations to all fellow shortlistees!
Many thanks also to my wonderful agent, Margaret Connolly, and to the fabulous team at Walker Books! And special thanks to Clare Hallifax, former publisher at Walker Books, who never forgot a conversation we had about Ben Hall years ago
Today, August 1, is the official publication day for The Giant, my new picture book with the wonderful illustrator, Lorena Carrington, and we are so thrilled! Published by MidnightSun Publishing, The Giant is a fable about, yes, a giant! He wakes from a long sleep and happily walks down the mountain to find his old friends in the town–but alas, so much time has passed since he went to sleep that nobody remembers him and everyone runs away in fear–everyone, that is, except for–well, read the book to find out!
The Giant is my second picture-book collaboration with Lorena, after Satin (MidnightSun Publishing, 2023), which was awarded a Notable Books citation in the 2024 Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Awards. And as with Satin, creating The Giant was an absolute blast of a book to create together with our lovely publisher Anna Solding and her team at MidnightSun Publishing.
To celebrate the book’s publication, Lorena and I have written a bit about how it all came about. Hope you enjoy reading about it–and enjoy reading the book, too!
From Sophie:
The idea for the story of The Giant came into my head one day when I was walking up the road on a sunny but cold winter morning. He just arrived without warning; one minute I was strolling along, just enjoying the walk, the next minute I had stopped abruptly, seeing him so clearly, waking up, yawning and stretching after sleeping in his cave for a very, very long time.
As a child, I had read old stories where great heroes slept for centuries in caves but might wake up one day if they were needed to fight battles. But I knew my giant wasn’t about fighting battles, he was about finding his friends. And I could imagine his excitement as he went out into the sunshine, filled with joy as he thought he could see his friends again. And then his sadness as he realised nobody remembered him…I hurried home then so I could write his story down and find out what happened next to this gentle giant whose tears could make a river rise.
It was wonderful to write it and even more wonderful and thrilling to see the Giant and his world come to life in Lorena’s magical illustrations!
on left, part of the original first draft in my notebook, on right the finished draft on the computer
From Lorena:
I loved Sophie’s gentle giant from the first time I read her story, and I could picture him immediately in my mind. He is made up completely from elements of nature: moss, stick, leaves, little bits and pieces you might find out walking, so I like think of him as being real part of the landscape that he’s in. In fact, most of the illustrations in this book are made with photographs of nature montaged together, along with paper collage, and a little bit of drawing.
I also knew right from the start that I wanted the illustrations to be full of colour. Set over a full day, from sunrise to after dark, the colours change according to the time of day. If you look closely you can see I’ve used photographs of different landscapes to make up landscapes in the giant’s world, and also added some cut paper, little bits of drawings, and added little interesting things here and there. Look out for the drawing of the giant in the book, and see if the scene repeats itself in a different way later in the book. Can you find versions of the birds and the butterfly from the page borders too?
pages showing the changing of the light over the course of the book…contrasts: the Giant ‘in an old book’ and ‘in real life’...
The Giant, by Sophie Masson and Lorena Carrington, published by MidnightSun Publishing, August 1, 2025. ISBN 9781922858658. Available in all good bookshops around Australia! You can read a few fabulous early reviews here, here and here.
Feathers of the Firebird 