A sweetly moving story about friendship and finding happiness, for readers who loved Wonder and Lenny's Book of Everything.SHORT-LISTED: 2024 CBCA Book of the Year, Older ReadersSHORT-LISTED: 2024 NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's LiteratureFrances is in a new house in a new neighbourhood and going to a new school, but no amount of new can make her forget the old...

Ariel had never met anyone who had returned from the Island. Still, her mother said it was a beautiful place, with shiny sand and ancient caves. There was some kind of school there, too, where characters went to learn their proper roles in life. But Concetta had always been a little vague. Deliberately, Ariel thought. Suspiciously.Ariel and Zed are both a bit weird. They're misfits, reluctant to be thrown together for the holidays. But when they reach the mysterious Island...

'Don't go near the lake, she waits there, under the water. When the sky is dark and the moon is full, the witch will come creeping.'Leo has heard the stories since he was a baby and now he's determined to find out if it's true. With his best friend, Merilee, he sets out to kill the superstitions that haunt his village. Leo is a wizard, like his great grandfather Illuminato, but there are sinister secrets at work against him. Will he have the power to withstand a raging force of evi...

Louis's best mates, Singo and Hassan, are into basketball and skateboarding, and his dad is into arm-wrestling. Dad wants to build Louis up with wrestling moves like the Walls of Jericho or the Five Star Frog Splash, but Louis is better at flexing words than flexing his muscles.This summer Louis is put to the test, starting with the Phenomenon of the broken mirror, leading to the Paralysing burglar incident, and finally the night when he comes face to face with

Will could walk a tightrope and juggle bananas as he went. 'One day you'll be the star of a circus,' his mother told him. 'But until then, you must be a secret.' For each year pirates came to the islands to steal young boys for their crew. And if that happened to you, well, you may as well kiss your life goodbye. So what's a young lad to do when his mother disappears and pirates arrive at his door?Will takes courage from a crazy truth-telling parrot, and his mother's advice: 'Keep ...

How do you make one of the toughest decisions in life when you're as lonely as a distant planet?Callisto May knows a lot about planets. She could name all the moons of Jupiter, or tell you the dimensions of the Great Red Spot, but she doesn't know much about love. She's so used to pleasing other people that she has lost track of how to be herself. And now there's no one close enough to help: her boyfriend is way out of reach; her mother is distracted by 'sad ladies'; and her dad - ...

Misdirection, illusion, locked doors and old secrets - these are the tools of the magician. What happens when they're used to escape from real life?Rachel Lambert can escape from a Bohemian Torture Crib, but she can't leave her marriage. 'You're stuck,' says the voice inside her head. 'And you'll never get out.'Her whole life she's tried to be a good girl - she considers others first and she's never missed a deadline. Now her family's doing a vanishing act,...

No one, living or dead, is more polite than Horrendo. In all his 11 years he's never said a rude word to anyone – because he was cursed at birth with a spell that only lets him speak kind words. Horrendo finds life difficult in his rough-and-tough village, yet when he and other boys are kidnapped and turned into slaves aboard a pirate ship, Horrendo must turn his curse into a blessing and come up with a clever plot to escape ...

This collection of imaginative Anna Fienberg stories is told by actor Tara Morice and includes The Mermaid with Wild Yellow Hair, Horatio the Jellyfish, The Sea Harpy and The Sea Witch War. Will Madeline be swallow up by the monster Kraken? Or will she be bored to death by the talking Pufferfish? Can she escape the Sea Harpy with her hair of hissing snakes? And prevent a war of magic between the rival Sea Witches – a war that would mean the end for all sea creatures?

'A fountain of power rose up and surged out through my eyes. I opened my fists to the sky and flames shot into the air.'When Roberto arrives in Italy from Australia he discovers dark family secrets: la magia, the power that is feared and suppressed, and a tragic story of love and icy revenge. Roberto has felt the power - his own power - burning through his fingertips. Angelica has it too. But together can they stop the curse spreading beyond their family and into ...

A fast, funny and action-packed adventure from the award-winning author of the Tashi series.Boadicea lives with her grandfather, Admiral Bolderack, and is always dreaming of excitement and adventure. But when Boa discovers a secret from the Admiral's past, and accidentally releases four terrifying pirates from her grandfather's curse, she gets more excitement that she ever could have imagined.Can her best friend, Wiggy, brave the curse of the pirates...

Frances is in a new house in a new neighbourhood and going to a new school, but no amount of new can make her forget the old, sad secret dragging at her heart. Not the pictures of bacteria that she draws with painstaking precision, not even Picasso, the puppy with the long soft ears and the cute black circle like a target on his bottom. Then Frances meets Kit, the tall, quiet boy with the two-coloured eyes. Kit is a real artist. His coloured pencils fill page after page of exercise books. ...