The Paperbark Tree Committee

Host Mia Henderson and young reader Ruby discuss The Paperbark Tree Committee with author Karys McEwen.

The Paperbark Tree Committee is Shortlisted for the 2026 CBCA Book of the Year Awards for Younger Readers.

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Twelve-year-old Art and his younger brother Hilary are great friends, best friends. When they move to Melbourne from a small town in Queensland things seem to be easy for Hilary, who is still in primary school, but Art struggles to fit in, and he's become a target for school bully Jack. His dad is too busy to give him much attention, but Art has his stepmum, Sally, who is always ready to listen. 

And there's the paperbark tree. Art and Hilary climb into its branches and hold a secret meeting whenever they need to sort things out. The only problem is Art's not sure he still wants to be part of the paperbark tree committee. He's getting older and he thinks he needs to solve his problems on his own.

The Paperbark Tree Committee is a heartfelt story about growing up and leaving childhood behind; it's about family and being a good brother, fitting in and finding friends, and about making mistakes and learning from them.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:14

Welcome to our very young shadow judgment podcast where we will celebrate young voices who are responding to one of the 2026 shortlisted books in the young reader category. Today we are chatting to Karis McEwen, the author of the Paperbark Tree Committee. This is a warm story about growing up, being a good brother, fitting in and finding friends, and about making mistakes and learning from them. Family is a strong thing. Our reader today is Ruby from the ACT. Welcome Ruby and Karis. Ruby, would you like to give us your reader response to the story, please?

Speaker 0:49

Uh I think it was really good. I liked it a lot. It was very coming of age, I think. As a lot of like the books in the short list were. Yeah, I think it was pretty good. I'd give it like a four out of five. Ruby, have you got any uh questions for Karis? What kind of like ex inspired you to write it?

Speaker 2 1:13

Thank you, Ruby. It's so nice to hear what you thought of the book. Um, I'm actually a school librarian. That's my kind of main gig. And the thing that inspired me the most to write this book was a student. Um, one of my year eight boys came up to me one day and asked me for a particular type of book that I just couldn't find on the library shelves. And so I found something for him that maybe wasn't quite right, but I got home that night and I thought I'm gonna write that book for that student. At the same time, I was also thinking a lot about writing about siblings. My first book, All the Little Tricky Things, is about an only child, and I myself have a younger sister, and I wanted to write about that really special, sometimes complicated relationship between siblings as they're growing up and coming of age, as you say.

Speaker 2:06

Yeah. Was it harder to write boy characters than girls?

Speaker 2 2:11

Definitely, it was a real challenge for me, but I also found it quite rewarding. Again, my first book was a female protagonist, a young girl, which I can identify more with as I'm um a girl myself. Uh, but writing a boy protagonist was definitely more difficult. I had to speak to a lot of the boys and men in my life as kind of research to find out what it is like to be um a teenage boy, and also speak to brothers because this book is about a brother relationship, as Mia said. But I'm I don't have a brother, I've got a sister, and so I spoke to a lot of people in my life that do have brothers and about what that relationship is like. So, yes, a lot of talking to people, a lot of conversations, and a lot of research.

Speaker 1 2:59

On the subject of characters, how did you pick your names for yours? Are they um are they based on people that you know in your life?

Speaker 2 3:09

That's a great question, thanks, Mia. They're not really based on any one person in my life. Some characters are a mix of different people, students, family members, and friends. But at the time I was writing the paper buttery committee, I was actually pregnant with my first child, and so I was thinking a lot about names. I was thinking about my book character names and also what am I gonna call this baby in my tummy? Um, and so I bought a book called Um The Best Baby Names of 2022, I think it was, which was a big, thick, chunky book filled with every name in the English language um and all the uh definitions, the origins of the names. So I was flicking through that, and so that is where a lot of the names from the book came from.

Speaker 1 3:58

Thank you. Ruby, have you got any other insights or questions?

Speaker 4:03

Uh, what authors inspired you? Like, was do you have like a favorite author or something?

Speaker 2 4:09

Yeah, when I was growing up, when I was your age, my favorite author was Judy Blume. She's an American author that writes books about ordinary kids going through ordinary things like friendship changes, family dynamics, puberty, first love, all these things that we all experience. Uh so she was my favorite. But these days I feel really grateful that kids in Australia have access to way more Australian literature. When I was growing up, there were very few Australian writers creating books for kids. So these days, some of my favourite authors are people like Nova Wheatman and Emily Gale, who also write similarly books about everyday kids, but do it in a really warm and reassuring way. Um and when I read books like that when I was your age, but also now, they help me feel a lot less alone, and I love that.

Speaker 1 5:06

Yeah. Paris, during the course of this book, I would say probably the climax would have been uh with the big proposal as the uh boys tried to set up for Sally and their dad. How did you come up with such an elaborate proposal?

Speaker 2 5:26

Yeah, that's a great question. Very specific. I wanted to show that sometimes in our life, especially when we're teenagers, we make mistakes, we do silly things, and sometimes we know in the moment that we're doing kind of the wrong thing, and we do it anyway. We're not perfect, we're human, um, we do these things and we regret them. Um, and so I wanted to show something uh where a character did something that he knew wouldn't go well, um, but he did it anyway, and then he kind of has to face the consequences of that and make amends for it. So, yeah, at the same time, I was also thinking about uh this idea of chosen family. And in the book, Sally, the stepmother character, is a really important um kind of chosen family member for art. She offers him so much support that his actual real dad doesn't really give him. And that's kind of been the case in my life too. I have great parents, they're wonderful, but I also have a lot of people that I've chosen as family to be mentors and to help me navigate changes and the world, and so wanted to highlight how important those people can be and how we want to keep them in our lives. That's why Art really wanted his dad to marry Sally because he didn't want her to leave.

Speaker 1 6:52

Thank you so much, Karis. What do you hope that readers feel when they finish this book?

Speaker 2 7:00

I hope that they feel less alone. As I said earlier, I think books can be a way to feel reassured that we're not total weirdos, we're not alone, we're not invisible, um, that our lives matter, and that going through the teenage years can be really tricky, um, can be a really hard period of life, but we aren't alone. A lot of people are going through the same kinds of things, even if they're not talking about it, and there are people out there that that can support us through those times. Um, so yeah, I hope that that my book feels like a warm hug, feels reassuring in that way.

Speaker 1 7:42

Definitely. Ruby, would you like to add upon what Karis has just said?

Speaker 7:47

What was your kind of inspiration for the relationship between the two brothers? I think that's really special, the kind of bond that they have.

Speaker 2 7:56

Thanks, Ruby. That really means a lot. I think my relationship with my younger sister was the inspiration. Uh, the book is dedicated to her, as you may see at the beginning of the story. And our relationship has always been close, but sometimes it's been complicated. There have been times in our lives where things have changed, where we've lived far away from each other, where I was in high school and she was still in primary school. And I think navigating the coming of age at different times can be a little bit fractious. It can be a little bit difficult. Um, and I wanted to I wanted to write about that, about how you can still love your sibling, you can think they're amazing, but sometimes you can feel kind of distanced from them. Sometimes you can feel like you're living different lives. So, yes, that is the inspiration. And also, I think being the oldest sibling, so art, my main character, is the oldest. I was the oldest in my family, and I think there's a lot of responsibility that comes along with being the oldest in your family, and a lot of pressure sometimes to get it right, um, which we don't always do.

Speaker 1 9:08

Thank you, Karis. My teacher librarian had a um a question for you. They were wondering what happened to Jack, the um bully in your story.

Speaker 2 9:19

What happens when the book is finished?

Speaker 1 9:21

After they've had the whole the principal gets involved, she felt as though it kind of wrapped up Jack's whole part in your story.

Speaker 2 9:32

Yeah, I think that was a very deliberate choice. I didn't want Jack to have this kind of perfect fairy tale ending, because that's not really what life is. I didn't want Jack and Art to become best friends, because I think it's not very often that we do become best friends with our bully, even if we kind of make amends um in some way. Um Jack's story continues, I think, off the page somewhere else. But yeah, I didn't in that last scene in the book where they're all together in the paper buttery um for the final meeting. I didn't want Jack to be there. I didn't think that he belonged in that part of the story. Um, so yeah, who knows? Maybe there's a there's a Jack story. Yeah, I don't think that books or stories need to have neat endings where everything is tied up because life isn't like that.

Speaker 1 10:24

Thank you for that insight for my teacher librarian. If you don't mind me asking, what are you currently working on?

Speaker 2 10:32

I've just started something new, so I had in my mind that I wanted to write a book for older students, so I wanted to write more a young adult novel, and I tried to do that, but that wasn't the voice that came to me. It was another middle grade novel. So I'm writing a book uh where the main character is in year eight, so still in that kind of middle grade space, and it's a story about intergenerational friendships. So being friends with people that aren't your age, that are older or younger. I really wanted to write about that because friendships with older people have been really important in my life. And so, yes, we'll see where it goes.

Speaker 1 11:13

Thank you, Karis, 100%. Ruby, have you got any final thoughts or questions for Karis? Uh not really, no. Well then, Karis, thank you for joining us in this lovely podcast. And Ruby, thank you for your insights as a reader. Thanks, Mia. Happy reading.