This is the compelling story of how the skull of an Aboriginal man, found on the banks of the Murray River over 40 years ago, came to be returned to his Wamba Wamba descendants. It is a story of awakening, atonement, forgiveness and friendship. 'It is as if a whole window into Indigenous culture has blown open, not just the window, but every door in the house,' says John Danalis. Part history, part detective story, part cultural discovery and emotional journey, this is a book for young and...

The amazing story of Australia's first surgeon and the boy he adopted.It's 1789, and as the new colony in Sydney Cove is established, Surgeon John White defies convention and adopts Nanberry, an Aboriginal boy, to raise as his son. Nanberry is clever and uses his unique gifts as an interpreter to bridge the two worlds he lives in.With his white brother, Andrew, he witnesses the struggles of the colonists to keep their precarious grip on a hostile wilderness. And ye...

A story of transportation and life in a new world from Australia's Children's LaureateAt the tender age of eight, chimney sweep Tom Appleby is convicted of stealing and sentenced to deportation to Botany Bay. As one of the members of the First Fleet, he arrives in a country that seemingly has little to offer - or little that the English are used to, anyway.Luckily, not long after tom's arrival in the colony, the fair and kind Sergeant Stanley decides to tak...

The 'War to end all Wars', as seen through the eyes of three young womenWar is being fought on a horrific scale in the trenches of France, but it might as well be a world away from sixteen-year-old New Zealander Midge Macpherson, at school in England learning to be a young lady. But the war is coming closer: Midge's brothers are in the army, and her twin, Tim, is listed as 'missing' in the devastating defeat of the Anzac forces at Gallipoli .Desperate to do...

A story about dreams, gold, rebellion ... and an unlikely friendship across timeIt's 1854, and the Ballarat goldfields are a place of dreams and rebellion as Sam, a homeless teenager, is called back to the past to join the Puddlehams, who run 'the best little cook shop on the diggings'.The Puddlehams dream of buying a hotel with velvet seats, while others dream of freedom from the British crown, away from t...

The story behind Banjo Paterson's iconic Australian song.'Once a jolly swagman camped by a BillabongUnder the shade of a Coolibah treeAnd he sang as he watched and waited till his Billy boiledYou'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me...'In 1894, twelve-year-old Matilda flees the city slums to find her unknown father and his farm. But drought grips the land, and the shearers are on strike. Her father has turned swaggie and he's wan...

**#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME • A NEW YORK TIMES READER TOP 100 PICK FOR BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE CENTURYThe extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times.**When Death has a story to tell, you listen.It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath...

In the tradition of The Man from Snowy River comes a gripping and courageous sequel to A Waltz for MatildaThe year is 1919. Thirty years have passed since the man from Snowy River made his famous ride. But World War I still casts its shadow across a valley in the heart of Australia, particularly for orphaned sixteen-year-old Flinty McAlpine, who lost a brother when the Snowy River men marched away to war.Why has the man Flinty loves return...

An exciting new tale of a brumby, a boy and a bushranger in the Animal Stars series.A story of survival, second chances ... and a dance with danger.Young Billy Marks is a pickpocket, transported to the penal colony of New South Wales. He reckons he'll become a bushranger - but that's before he's had a chance to see the bush up close. And when he buys the big white brumby stallion, covered with scars but refusing to bend to any man's will, he knows he made t...

Just shut your eyes and picture yourself walking around the corner. that's what my friend told me. Somewhere around the corner and you'll be safe. the demonstration was wild, out of control. Barbara was scared. She saw the policeman running towards her. She needed to escape. She closed her eyes and did precisely that: she walked somewhere around the corner - to another demonstration - to another time. Barbara was lucky she meet young Jim who took her out of this strange, frightening city t...

The third title in the Matilda saga, which began with A Waltz for Matilda and followed with The Girl from Snowy River. A true cross-over, that becomes a terrific holiday read for our literary adult market. A page-turning, heart-warming family saga set in the Snowy Mountains during the Depression in the 1930s.Blue Laurence has escaped the prison of her aunt's mansion to join the Magnifico Family Circus, a travelling troupe that brings glamour and l...

'HISTORICAL FICTION AT ITS BEST'-- Bookseller & PublisherIt's 1939, and for Georg, son of an English academic living in Germany, life is full of cream cakes and loving parents. It is also a time when his teacher measures the pupils' heads to see which of them have the most 'Aryan'- shaped heads. But when a university graduation ceremony turns into a pro-Nazi demonstration, Georg is smuggled out of Germany to war-torn London and then across enemy sea...