Readings.com.au: MWF 2009 Schools Program Authors

The Billionaire's Curse

Someone has stolen the world’s most valuable diamond and a constable lies unconscious in the British Museum, two sedative darts protruding from his backside.

Not something Gerald Wilkins knows or cares anything about.

Not until he finds himself on a private luxury jet heading for London to attend the funeral of a great aunt he has never met. Not until he inherits her estate, worth twenty billion pounds. Not until he opens a bundle of envelopes from his dead great aunt.

Was she murdered? Who stole the diamond? And what is the mysterious casket that everyone seems to be looking for?

With the help of the Valentine twins, the rat-fearing Sam and the gymnastic champ Ruby, Gerald’s got a mystery to solve. A mystery that will take them into secret passageways, a musty bookshop, an ancient crypt, a ruined tower and a colossal cavern where the secret of a priceless treasure lies protected by deadly booby traps.

The Billionaire’s Curse is an irresistible adventure story with an array of curious characters, ancient folklore and a whodunnit. Young and not-so-young adults, get ready to stay up late.

Finnikin Of The Rock

Finnikin of the Rock and his guardian, Sir Topher, have not been home to their beloved Lumatere for ten years. Not since the dark days when the royal family was murdered and the kingdom put under a terrible curse. But then Finnikin is summoned to meet Evanjalin, a young woman with an incredible claim: the heir to the throne of Lumatere, Prince Balthazar, is alive.

Evanjalin is determined to return home and she is the only one who can lead them to the heir. As they journey together, Finnikin is affected by her arrogance . . . and her hope. He begins to believe he will see his childhood friend, Prince Balthazar, again. And that their cursed people will be able to enter Lumatere and be reunited with those trapped inside. He even believes he will find his imprisoned father.

But Evanjalin is not what she seems. And the truth will test not only Finnikin's faith in her . . . but in himself.

Tales From Outer Suburbia

CBCA Older Readers Book of the Year 2009

Do you remember the water buffalo at the end of our street?

Or the deep-sea diver we found near the underpass?

Do you know why dogs bark in the middle of the night?

Shaun Tan, creator of The Arrival, The Lost Thing and The Red Tree, reveals the quiet mysteries of everyday life: homemade pets, dangerous weddings, stranded sea mammals, tiny exchange students and secret rooms filled with darkness and delight.

Specials: Uglies Book 3

In this final book of the Uglies trilogy, Tally has been transformed from a repellent ugly to supermodel pretty. Now shes a super-amped fighting machine. Her mission is to keep the uglies down and the pretties stupid. But Tallys never been good at playing by the rules.

The 10PM Question

Frankie Parsons is twelve going on old man, an apparently sensible, talented boy with a drumbeat of worrying questions steadily gaining volume in his head:

Are the smoke alarm batteries flat?

Does the cat, and therefore the rest of the family, have worms?

Will bird flu strike and ruin life as we know it?

Is the Kidney-shaped spot on his chest actually a galloping cancer?

Only Ma takes seriously his catalogue of persistent queries. But it is Ma who is the cause of the most worrying question of all, the one that Frankie can never bring himself to ask. Then the new girl arrives at school and has questions of her own: relentless, unavoidable questions. So begins the unravelling of Frankie Parsons's carefully controlled world.

Where The Streets Had A Name

"I need to see Sitti Zeynab one last time. To know if I will have the courage to go ahead with my plan. The two nurses look frazzled and smile wearily at me. 'We must leave now,' they say in urgent tones. 'I won't be long,' I reassure them and I jump up onto the back of the ambulance.

"I can smell the air of her village, pure and scented. I can see her village as though it were Bethlehem itself. I can smell the almond trees. Hear my heels click on the courtyard tiles. See myself jumping two steps at a time down the limestone stairs. I can see Sitti Zeynab sitting in the front porch of the house. I only have to remember that walk through her memories and I know I can make my promise. I've already lost once. I refuse to lose again. 'Stay alive,' I whisper. 'And you shall touch that soil again.'"

Screw Loose

"I can catch tennis balls in my mouth!" - Matilda
"You may sneer, but they all adore me." - Chelsea Dean
"She's cute, but if she bites try rubbing her tummy" - Craig R
"Go Cockies!" - A. Tarano - chick magnet
"I do own an elephant." - Georgia
"Sure, I threw up on his bedroom floor, but we're still an item." - Joshua Y
"They shot me - but I don't know why."- Zeynep
"I, like, kinda like cops" - Khiem
A motley group of teenagers trying to navigate their way through the school year.
Dolls, dogs, football, baklava, first love, new love and one helluva party...

A Ghost In My Suitcase

The flute music stops, and my breath catches in my throat. Silence falls like a veil. Then I hear something - no, I feel it in my chest. 'Steady yourself,' Por Por whispers. 'It's here . . . '

When Celeste travels to China to visit her grandmother, she uncovers an incredible family secret. And with this secret comes danger and adventure.

If Celeste is to save her family and friends, she must learn to harness her rare and powerful gift . . .

The Signal

URTHBOY is back!! The new album is called ‘The Signal’.

From humble beginnings with fellow label mates HERMITUDE in the Blue Mountains, Urthboy now commands attention as co-frontman for renowned hip hop crew THE HERD and head honcho at ELEFANT TRAKS.

Teaming up with COUNT BOUNCE (TZU) and ELGUSTO (Hermitude) on production, ‘The Signal’ is a dramatic follow-up album to the highly acclaimed ‘Distant Sense of Random Menace’ (ACE013 – 3000 + sales [!!], rel. 2004). Do not miss this release!! Featuring collaborations with MIA DYSON, HAU (KOOLISM), MUPH (MUPH & PLUTONIC), OZI BATLA (THE HERD), THE TONGUE (ELEFANT TRAKS), MARK PEARL (THE COMMAS), and up and coming Indigenous Soul singer & spoken word artist RADICAL SON - who has already worked with JADE MACRAE.

Shakespeare: The Most Famous Man In London

Young,handsome and talented, actor and playwright Will Shakespeare’s plays are packing them in The Globe. He is without a doubt the most famous man in London.

But Will is more than a celebrity.

He is a skilled swordsman who carries two daggers with him at all times. His friend, Christopher Marlowe, has been murdered and Will knows he will have to be smart to avoid the same fate.

But being smart comes naturally to William Shakespeare— and he is about to make it bigger than he ever dreamed possible.

Tracey Binns Is Lost

A funny and heartwarming story from the popular author of Tracey Binns is Trouble.

Tracey Binns is lost and the last thing she wants is to be stuck with Justin Zit-Face and her annoying teacher, Mr Gunning!

Tracey's school has started a new healthy eating and exercise program, and the kids are not happy. They're even less happy when Mr Gunning, their dreaded PE teacher announces that he is taking the Grade Six students on a bush survival and fitness camp.

Facing the pitch-dark and the strange calls of the wild is not Tracey's idea of fun and Mr Gunning is doing nothing to put her fears to rest. But all this looks like a walk in the park when they become lost on a long day's march ... Tracey Binns is in trouble again!

Genie In Training: Tweenie Genie Book One

Poppy is just an ordinary girl. In fact, the only slightly strange thing about her is that she's great at squeezing into small spaces. So it's a pretty big shock when she finds a strange looking bottle on her 12th birthday and discovers that she has the Genie Gene!

Now Poppy's Genie Training is about to begin - she has to get used to wearing weird clothes and high ponytails, riding magic carpets and learning to grant wishes. At least squeezing into small spaces come naturally!

Mr Chicken Goes To Paris

From the creator of Old Tom, Horrible Harriet and Fiona the Pig comes the unforgettable and riotous Mr Chicken! What's in store for Mr Chicken in the City of Love, and how will the Parisians react?

'The world's most beautiful city meets the world's most startling chicken... Not since Quasimodo has Paris been host to a monster of such charm. In typical exuberant style, Hobbs takes us abroad with the gentlemanly Mr Chicken, who tours the magnifique sights of Paris unaware that his enormous top-hatted self is the most astonishing spectacle of all. Joyously colourful, brilliantly observed, hilariously wry, Mr Chicken Goes to Paris is Leigh Hobbs' masterpiece.' Sonya Hartnett

Mr Chicken has taken up his friend Yvette's invitation to visit Paris. As they journey together through the City of Love, Mr Chicken is overcome by the magic of all the city has to offer - and the inhabitants of this most stylish city don't quite know what to make of him. Mr Chicken will delight children of all ages.

Loving Richard Feynman

Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Catherine is a science-loving fifteen-year-old. Richard helped build the atom bomb. Catherine's just trying to survive school.

When your life is falling apart around you, is talking to a dead physicist normal?

Catherine thinks so, but it isn't until her life begins unravelling that she learns who she can really trust.

Inheritance

The Myrtle twins, Dibs Hamilton and Girlie Delaney, are turning 80. As the family gathers to celebrate, speculation grows as to who will be the one to inherit the family property, Allandale, when the ageing Farley Hamilton is gone. From award-winning playwright Hannie Rayson, comes a powerful new family drama, where duty contends with freedom, and the differences of race, gender and generation must be reconciled before the claims on Allandale, and its families, may be settled.

Growing Up Asian In Australia

Asian-Australians are known to each other and the outside world by many labels: Quiet Achiever. FOB. Gangster Chigger. Mainlander. Banana. But are these labels based on some degree of truth, or only fiction? What is it like to grow up Asian in Australia?

Unpredictable, honest, reflective and irreverent, this collection throws out the clichés and takes us behind the stereotypes. A young man tentatively steps toward manhood with Mariah Carey blasting in his ears, while two primary-school misfits stage a playground revolt. A white Australian woman describes mothering her adopted Asian son, and a teenage boy learns all about philandering from his visiting uncles. Here are respected public figures as well as exciting new voices, drawn from all walks of life and spanning several generations. With insight, courage and a large dose of humour, they shed new light on what it is like to grow up Asian, and Australian.

Bloke

Jim Bloke's your typical Aussie, sort of. Being an orphan he's done it tough in the past, but he knows how to take care of himself and he has an affinity with life's important things. So when he takes a job as a sea-urchin diver on a stretch of coastal paradise, he's right at home with the morwong, pearl perch and butterfish.

He's less at home with the people – apart from the woman who works as his deckhand – since the industry's crookeder than your average banker. And because Bloke's already done a season in the big gym, he makes a perfect fall guy when things go wrong.

That sends him running again, by a roundabout way into the arms of his real family. But Jim's not sure that's where he wants to be. He wants love and that's hard, he wants his identity and that's even harder.

Bloke is an achingly funny novel about coming to terms with who you are, where you belong, who you love. Jim has a weakness for women that leads him into trouble, and then to salvation.

Read an extract from Bloke.

Love You Two

'Then something shifted. I don't know when what used to make me content began to make me cringe; when my adoration of her turned to irritation. Was it adolescence? Was it a mother-daughter thing?'

Pina's friends think she's lucky. How many families get along the way hers does - how many parents are as free-spirited and happy as hers? But sometimes Pina wonders who the grown-up is - her or her mother.

Then a chance glimpse at an email unravels what Pina thought she knew about life and love. Can her family survive what she has discovered? And what does it all mean for Pina's own life?

Two siblings, two boys, two cities, three generations, four friends. How many versions of the truth?

Rooftops

Debut novel from local Melbourne artist Mandy Ord.

Bombshells

Six monologues made famous by the diva Caroline O'Connor, exposing six women balancing their inner and outer lives with humour and often desperate cunning. They range in age from a feisty teenager to a 64-year-old widow yearning for the unexpected.

Vulture's Gate

It is 40 years into the future and the world is in turmoil. A plague has destroyed humans' ability to conceive females, or so Callum thinks until he meets Bo. A page-turning adventure unfolds as the pair rely on each other to survive a dangerous journey to a safe haven in the city of Vulture's Gate.

One girl - could she be the last girl alive? One boy, pursued by reckless men who have kidnapped him from his fathers.

Bo and Callum go in search of a safe haven, a place to call home. But where can they turn and who can they trust? When every stranger is a threat, does their only hope lie in reaching Vulture's Gate?

Following a journey that takes them across barren deserts and lost valleys, Bo and Callum must discover how to survive alongside runaway boys and crazed religious terrorists, in a world with an uncertain future.

And what is the disturbing secret at the ruined city's core?

Arrival: The Phoenix Files One

Luke is having a rough year. His parents split up. Then his mum moves to Phoenix, a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, and she drags Luke along with her. But Phoenix is no ordinary town. It was built from the ground up by the enigmatic Shackleton Co-operative less than a year ago. There are no cars, no phone lines, and a private security force instead of police. Luke thinks this is as weird as it gets. Then he and his new friends discover that someone in Phoenix is plotting to wipe out the human race. And the clock is already ticking. There are one hundred days until the end of the world.

Read the first two chapters.

The City And The City

When the body of a murdered woman is found in the extraordinary, decaying city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks like a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borl of the Extreme Crime Squad.

Jarvis 24

Winner of the 2010 CBCA Book of the Year award for Older Readers.

So far, Marc E. Jarvis has lost a white football boot, a school tie and a best friend. But there's more in store for him when he completes Work Experience at a local car yard – where his world is truly rocked, shocked and shaken. Then Marc meets Electra. And nothing will ever be the same again . . .

Bruising: A Boxer’s Story

Bruising is the story of Merz’s long love affair with the art of boxing - from throwing and receiving her first punches - to competing in an Australian amateur title fight and beyond. Boxing opens her to new ideas about what it means to be a woman, it tests her courage as well as her physical limitations and connects her with others in unexpected ways. It provides her with the thrilling and often hilarious background against which to examine myths about feminine virtue and physical weakness.

Bruising, which was short listed for the Dobbie Award in 2001, and this latest edition is updated with new material based on a trip to New York where Merz spent time training with the women at one of America’s oldest and most famous boxing gyms.

Mischa Merz is a journalist and author of both fiction and non-fiction. She has worked for newspapers and magazines for twenty years. Bruising, originally published by Picador Australia, has been reissued with updated material, by Vulgar Press. She lives in Melbourne with her husband Peter.

The Greatest Blogger In The World

Charlie Ridge has one small goal in life - to be the Greatest Blogger in the World.

The internet has been in a frenzy since a competition began to win the website address www.thegreatestbloggerintheworld.com, and Charlie is making sure he’s the number one contender.

Charlie has plenty to blog about – his best mate Phattius Beats, who runs an illegal red-cordial business at school; his little brother, who insists on wearing a tuxedo to kinder; and his number one crush, who is the teacher’s pet and always wears knee-high boots. Oh, and his pet duck, Barcode.

Then some really blog-worthy things happen. When the school mascot is stolen and a multinational corporation tries to take over the school formal, Charlie has his chance to Be the Hero, Get the Girl and Save the Day. That’s got to give him a leg up on the quest to be the Greatest Blogger in the World, right?

www.thegreatestbloggerintheworld.com
www.andrewmcdonald.net.au

Into White Silence

During the winter of 1922, the Exploration Vessel RAVEN became trapped in the Antarctic icepack, entombing 28 men aboard it through the dark, polar night. INTO WHITE SILENCE tells their story - a story of a lost past, of a tragic future, of ice, ambition and madness. It captures the terrible, fascinating beauty of Antarctica, both as it was then and is today, and is a journey into the mind of every person who has ever set foot upon those ice-bound shores.

Just Macbeth

Take one Shakespearean tragedy: Macbeth.

Add Andy, Danny and Lisa – the Just trio, whose madcap exploits have already delighted hundreds of thousands of readers for the last ten years.

Mix them all together to create one of the most hilarious, most dramatic, moving stories of love, Whizz Fizz, witches, murder and madness, from the bestselling and funniest children's author in Australia.

Miss McAllister's Ghost

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE CBCA BOOK OF THE YEAR HELICOPTER MAN

When Cassandra and her brothers climb the garden wall hoping to spot the ghost in the old hollow-eyed house, they have no idea what awaits within. Suddenly, and then seductively, they are drawn into a world long lost, a world preserved by a woman whose memories have kept her trapped in time and place.

But do the children really know the ghostly old lady as well as they think they do? Or is there something even more bizarre living under her roof?

From the author of the CBCA award-winning Helicopter Man comes a story of unexpected surprises that asks us to re-examine what we think we know of ugliness and beauty.

The Push

Love is just about the only hold anyone can have over another person; if you have that, nothing else is necessary.

'Is she - was she with Johnno?' asked Erica. 'It doesn't work like that,' Trish said. 'It's more . . . fluid.'

Erica is restless for a life outside her office job, the man she dates and her mother's small house in the slummy inner city.

So when she meets a 'bad' bunch known as the Push, she is quickly drawn to them. They have no respect for money, or marriage, or careers, or any of the usual things. They offer the freedom Erica is longing for - but can she handle it?

Set in 1950s Sydney, this is a dramatic tale about growing up and making choices from the author of Bye, Beautiful.

The Beginner's Guide To Living

Seventeen-year-old Will is clever but he can't find answers to any of his questions after his mother dies in a car accident. His father seems to be drifting and his older brother stays away from home. And Will just can't get past being either angry or in tears. He finds his mum's old camera and begins taking photos that help him see thing differently.

When he meets sixteen-year-old Taryn he falls for her in a big way. On top of that, his mind is exploding with new questions: like so many teenagers, he's desperate for ideas by which he can live and die.

Lia Hills' The Beginner's Guide to Living is a compelling novel about grief, ideas and experience, about those moments in your life that change you forever.

Third Transmission

Six of Hearts is sealed inside a torpedo, blasting his way at 300 kilometres an hour towards a warship. His mission: to steal canisters containing a weaponised strain of the SARS virus. If he fails, ChaoSonic will use the virus to wipe out an uprising that is tearing the City apart.

Hey Joe

Hey Joe, written by Michael Hyde, is the story of Jimi Thorn, a young man who has been brought up almost solely by his mother, Molly. His father Joe Thorn played a prominent role in the anti-Vietnam War protests, but seems to have felt a little lost ever since, and has only ever drifted into Jimi's life spasmodically.

Jimi reaches a point in his life where nothing seems to make sense, and he decides that he has to finally get to know his father properly. Unfortunately, Jimi discovers that Joe too has experienced some kind of crisis and has taken off to Vietnam to try to sort himself out. So Jimi follows in his father's footsteps, but frustratingly always finds himself a step behind. He walks the same roads, talks to the same people, and even sleeps in the same rooms as his father, but can't quite seem to catch up. Along the way Jimi begins to learn a whole lot more about Joe and the war, courtesy of a collection of Joe's writing passed onto him by his mother before he left. He also seems to discover more about himself. He learns about mateship, about loyalty, both to a cause and to a friend, and even a little about love when he meets Thao.

In Hey Joe, Michael Hyde successful recalls the tumultuous times of Vietnam War period; and also provides an insight into post-war Vietnam, a country still trying to rebuild after decades of war.

Sunblind

A surprising and very likely award-winning debut collection from an established Melbourne performer. Over 300 copies sold since its launch in November 2008! This one is special... and it's printed on top quality 100% recycled paper. We're so sure you'll be impressed that we'll offer a money-back guarantee — return your copy in reasonably good condition within 30 days, and we'll refund your purchase price. Our bet is you won't be willing to part with it.

Grace

From the bestselling and award winning author of Once, Then and Boy Overboard comes the story of Grace Hillgrove.

In the beginning there was me and Mum and Dad and the twins.

And talk about happy families, we were bountiful.

But it came to pass that I started doing sins.

And lo, that when all our problems began.

Read an extract from Grace

Outside In

The cool group at school is not as luminous as it seems. Sure they appear to have it all, but there are problems lurking just below the surface.

Beautiful Jordan is struggling to cope because of her newly divorced parents, Meredith covers her past by playing the clown, Cecilia hides her feelings and a shameful secret, Sam is growing up, and Jack is caught off-guard when he falls in love for the first time.

And then there’s someone else. She’s not part of the group. The others have no idea she’s there. But she knows that there are cracks. She watches them from the inside, out. From the outside, in.

Shadowboxing

Michael's working-class Catholic family live as though under siege, surviving poverty and violence, as well as his father's drinking and rage. Set against this darkness, Michael is a Huck Finn character, with the Yarra River as his inner-Melbourne Mississippi which he explores with a hunger for adventure and wild, dangerous fun.

How To Ditch Your Fairy

At New Avalon, everyone has a personal fairy - some less desirable than others: Charlie's fairy ensures that she always has a car park, which seems to pale in comparison to Fiorenze's all-the-boys-like-you fairy. Hilarious, original, enchanting, this is urban teenage humour at its best.

'I have a parking fairy. I'm fourteen years old. I can't drive. I don't like cars and I have a parking fairy. Rochelle gets a clothes-shopping fairy and is always well attired; I get a parking fairy and always smell faintly of petrol. How fair is that?'

Welcome to New Avalon, where everyone has a personal fairy. Invisible to the naked eye, a personal fairy is vital to success - but for Charlie, having a parking fairy is worse than nothing at all, especially since she's not old enough to drive.

From the author of the acclaimed Magic or Madness trilogy, this is a delightful story of friendships, fairies, and figuring out how to make your own magic.

Wardragon: Jelindel Chronicles Book 4

Wardragon is the culmination of the soaring saga of The Jelindel Chronicles. Finally Jelindel, with her allies, Zimak and Daretor, has tracked the alien mailshirt across two radically different worlds.

Don't Start Me Talking: Lyrics 1984 to 2004

There is something unique and powerful about the way Kelly mixes up everyday detail with the big issues of life, death, love and struggle-not a trace of pretence or fakery in there.' - Neil Finn
'At its best, Paul Kelly's art is a meeting of opposites, a gift for melody and a gritty sense of reality. It is like seeing ribbons on a barbed wire fence.' - Martin Flanagan
Don't Start Me Talking comprises some of the finest poetry written in Australia. Paul Kelly s lyrics illuminate the way we live, sometimes with a haunting and savage intensity, sometimes with humour, always with a lightness and simplicity that belies the complexity of the world he is singing and writing into being.
In addition to his lyrics, Kelly has written songs with and for many other artists, include Renee Geyer, Kate Ceberano, Vika and Linda Bull, Nick Cave, Kasey Chambers, Yothu Yindi, Archie Roach and Troy Cassar-Daley. The lyrics encompass his writing over two decades, from 1984 to 2004, and are grouped by album in chronological order: Post, Gossip, Under The Sun, So Much Water So Close To Home, Comedy, Funerals And Circuses, Wanted Man, Deeper Water, Words And Music, Professor Ratbaggy, Smoke, One Night The Moon, Nothing But A Dream and Ways and Means. Also included are lyrics that have not been previously published.

The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas

Lines may divide us, but hope will unite us . . .

Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas.

Bruno's friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process.

Tender Morsels

Tender Morsels is a dark and vivid story, set in two worlds and worrying at the border between them. It is a tale of journeys and transformations, penetrating the boundaries between male and female, reality and myth, conscious and unconscious, temporal and spiritual, human and beast From girl to witch to woman. From boy to beast to man. From hell to heaven to the real world.

Liga is a young peasant girl of no consequence. Abused by her father (who plies her with potions to induce miscarriages that destroy all evidence of his shame), then raped by callous youths, she has two beautiful babies. One day she is saved by natural magic and, in exchange for her earthly life, her world is changed into her own personal Heaven, given to her by natural magic. Safe in this nurturing world, Liga builds a life of loving domesticity for her daughters, gentle Branza and curious Urdda, who grow up there, protected from all that once harmed Liga: violence, sexual predation and village prejudice. What is this potent place? Is it the idealized world of Liga's imagination, a shared unconscious, or the realm of myth and magic?

But back in the real world, hedge-witch Muddy Annie, begged by a desperate, debt-ridden friend, tries sending him to his own Heaven. Her botched attempt puts him instead into the world of Liga and her daughters, and gives him on arrival the power to turn wildflowers to coins, frog-eggs to pearls, tiny birds to precious stones and to pass back into the real world with the wealth he gathers. But his numerous journeys create perforations in the skin between the real world and the magic world.

Although these generally have no effect, on Bear Day every spring the fur-costumed Bears running the ritual chase through the village sometimes tumble through, transformed from lusty young men into real, wild bears in Liga's Heaven.

How far can you take your fantasies before they grow dangerous? How fully can you protect your children, and how completely should you? Built on a mythic scaffolding, Tender Morsels asks timeless questions about what it is to be human, and explores the evil and sweetness in the world and reveals the essential magic of learning to live with both.

A long-awaited novel from an author acclaimed for the fearless range of her imagination, the emotional intensity of her stories, and the virtuosity of her writing.

A story of astonishing beauty, originality and power.

Last Of The Braves

ALEX banged on the windscreen with his fists, wolf-whistling and howling . . . 'We are the bravi, Ces. No one has a clue about who we are.'

Under the influence of his idol, the hot-headed seventeenth-century Italian painter Caravaggio, Alex draws his mate Ces into an uncontrollable cycle of destruction and hurt.

A Riddle Of Green: The Legend Of Little Fur Book Four

'The words of the deepest foretellings are riddles that want solving.'

'A riddle,' Little Fur echoed, and the word tasted tricky and complicated on her tongue and in her mind.

'Only in understanding the riddle can its solution be found.'

All her life, Little Fur has healed others. This time, it is she who needs healing.

Only the earth spirit that links all living things can help her, but can she find it in time? Little Fur begins a strange and dangerous journey that will take her far from her beloved wilderness and lead her deep into the secrets of her own past.

Everything Beautiful

I believe in Chloe and chocolate. I believe the best part is always before. I believe that most girls are shifty and most guys are dumb. I believe the more you spill, the less you are. I don't believe in life after death or diuretics or happy endings. I don't believe anything good can come from this.

Riley Rose doesn't want to be at Spirit Ranch Holiday Camp. Riley wants to be partying with her best friend Chloe at the beautiful Ben Sebatini's house. She has a plan to get away from the jumpsuit-wearing counsellors, the feel-good mantras, do-gooder campers and the monotonous schedule of team-building exercises and outdoor activities.

But is everything at the Spirit Ranch as it appears? What secrets are waiting for discovery in the abandoned Fraser house? And why doesn't anyone want to talk about the accident that landed the mysterious Dylan in a wheelchair last year?

Everything Beautiful – a love story about the broken and the broken-hearted.

The Big Picture Book Of Human Civilisation

With stunning images and a child-friendly text based on the latest scientific research, the award-winning author of The Big Picture Book sets out the biggest milestones in human history since the last great Ice Age.

In words and pictures, this book maps the great advances and crises of human history from 20 000 years ago to now. Read about the first sculptures and paintings, first cultivated crops, new hunting methods, the earliest city, grand temples and pyramids, the taming of cats and dogs, a sudden mini Ice Age. Find out who were the great Arab thinkers of the Middle Ages, when bubonic plague struck, which scientist discovered electricity, what a hadron collider does, and lots more!

Dr John Long is Head of Sciences at Museum Victoria. A previous publication, The Big Picture Book, won a Wilderness Society award and an award for Excellence in Educational Publishing, and was shortlisted for a Children's Book Council of Australia award. He has also wrote The Big Picture Book of Environments.