James Foley makes children’s books for children who read books. If you’re a child and you’re eating his books, you’re doing it wrong. His books include the Secret Agent Mole graphic novel series, the S.Tinker Inc graphic novel series, and the multi-award winning Stellarphant. James lives in Perth with his wife, 2 kids, and a labrador. He is a massive Marvel movie nerd and comes from a long line of queuing enthusiasts. Follow him on socials ( @jamesfoleybooks ) or at www.jamesfoley.com.au .
“pure joy … silly, expressive and full of laugh out loud moments. This was reread twice in one sitting because they wanted to look again. One of our favourites!” – @playful.childhood, Instagram
You can find a copy at your local indie bookshop or online – links below.
Happy Barry Capybara: Gone Bananas
🇦🇺🇳🇿 Australia/NZ edition, published by Scholastic Australia, Feb 2026 ISBN: 9781761725296 (hardback)
Happy Barry Capybara is the most chilled-out animal on the savannah. But when his friend the cheeky squirrel monkey, Harry, and his cousins are fighting over the last banana, Barry is left to decide who will get it. Which monkey will win the favour of Barry? Or will Barry have a new lesson to teach them about what it means to share?
Kalamunda is a beautiful town in the Perth hills, which in 2026 is holding its inaugural Readers’ Festival! I’ve got a bunch of events over the weekend – see below for details.
I’m honoured to have some artwork included in the 2026 SQUIGL calendar! But the artwork isn’t just mine – it’s a collab between me and a kid living in regional Queensland called Will Thomas.
SQUIGL Club is an awesome online drawing group for kids in regional Queensland. It was developed by author-illustrator Andy Geppert along with Somerset Storyfest and the Longreach School of Distance Education.
Andy had a brilliant idea – let’s raise funds for regional kids to visit a writers festival, and let’s sell calendars to do it! Each month’s artwork is an artistic collaboration between a kid living on a remote property and a professional illustrator. The kids each drew a bird or a flying creature, then the illustrators worked it into a schmick piece of art.
And now you can take the artwork home with you! The 2026 SQUIGL Club Art Calendar looks great on kitchen walls, fridges – even dunny doors.
Check out the illustrators involved: Niña Nill, Sami Bayly, Peter Cheong, Matt Stanton, Mandy Foot, Natasha Carty, Terry Whidborne, Tony Flowers, Brent Wilson, Kate Isobel Scott, Andy Geppert, and me!
All proceeds support literacy in regional communities by funding transport and tickets to regional Somerset Storyfest events in Longreach, St George, and Emerald.
Here’s a little bit about my piece for the calendar. I started off with Will Thomas’ excellent drawing of a toucan …
… and ended up with a tree FULL of toucans! Can you spot Will’s initial drawing in there?
I’ll show some more process in a later post.
In the meantime, why not hit the link and order yourself a whizz-bang, feel-good 2026 calendar?
Are you a young reader? Do you enjoy a day out? Well funnily enough there’s this event coming up that’s perfect for young readers who enjoy a day out, and you wouldn’t believe what it’s called …
Join me as well as Andy J Alexander, Maria Blackman, Cristy Burne, Joanne Colely, Steve Heron, Suzanne Ingelbrecht, Julia Lawrinson, Frané Lessac, Susan Lu, Kristy Nita Brown, Sandi Parsons, Alexander Thorpe and Renée Treml. We’ll be reading a bit of our books, and signing copies, and there’ll be goodie bags and book discounts and general bookish awesomeness!
DATE: Sunday 23rd November TIME: 10:30am-12:30pm WHERE: State Library of WA TICKETS: $20 + booking fee (includes entry for up to 6 people, $20 voucher at Boffins pop-up bookshop, and gift bags) BOOKINGS: essential via trybooking.
Nov 25: YABBA online session
I’m running an online session for Victorian schools through YABBA!
All Victorian Government primary & secondary schools are YABBA members in 2025; you can register for the session through the members area of the YABBA website.
Other schools can also access the session, as long as they have a YABBA membership.
DATE: Tuesday 25th November TIME: 9:30am (AEDT) WHERE: online COST: included with YABBA membership REGISTER: via the YABBA website.
It’s a biennial award from the Psychologists for Peace interest group (part of the Australian Psychological Society).
Also on the shortlist are friends and colleagues Deborah Abela, Karys McEwen, Amy Freund, Kooky Chooky, Jared Thomas, David Metzenthen, Larissa Ferenchuk and Prue Pittock . Congrats all!
This one is part of Walker Books’ Paw Prints series – junior fiction books by funny authors and illustrators. Fuzzball is written by Nathan Luff, illustrated by me! Out in April.
I don’t have a cover to share with you yet, but I can tell you it’s a non-fiction follow up to my most popular book, Stellarphant. It will be my very first non-fiction book! More news on that soon.
This one comes from a session at the State Library of NSW last weekend. I was joined by my author-illustrator bud Sean E Avery (creator of Frank’s Red Hat and Friendly Bee) who provided the live illustrations!
We had some fantastic ideas from the kids in the audience; check out the story below.
‘MEG WYNNE THE PIG-UIN’
Sunday October 26, 10:30am-11:30am
In which a half-pig, half-penguin called Meg Wynne – who spends most of her time diving underwater to catch cabbage fish – decides to chase her long-held dream of flying through the sky.
I ran some improv storytelling sessions at the Awesome Arts Festival this week – where the kids came up with the ideas, and I illustrated them live! Huge thanks to all the amazing young storytellers who came along and offered up madcap characters, preposterous plot points and epic endings.
Session 1: ‘Luca the Heartbroken Toaster’
Wednesday October 1, 11:15am-12:15pm
In which Rosita, the sea star-girlfriend of Luca the Toaster is kidnapped by the evil Captain Bob, the intergalactic Butter Pirate. Captain Bob is called a Butter Pirate not because he steals butter, but because his body is a chunk of butter. Captain Bob flies off into space in his ship, the Blendar 1, with Rosita in a cage beside him.
James Foley 