Mahtab and her family are forced to leave their home in Afghanistan and travel secretly to faraway Australia, a journey she must endure along with the disappearance of her father.
Australia
Materials from Australia
Onion Tears
A little Vietnamese girl tries to come to terms with her grief over the loss of her family and her new life with the Australian family with whom she lives.
Pearl Verses the World
Pearl feels like an island in school, isolated and alone, but at home she feels loved and secure until her grandmother’s illness changes the way Pearl views her world.
Eona
Facing the ultimate battle for control of the land she calls home, Eona finds herself waging an internal battle every bit as devastating as the war threatening to break out across the kingdom.
Lost! A Dog Called Bear
When Logan’s dog runs away as he and his mother are moving to a new home after his parents separate, a girl named Hannah, who longs for a dog of her own, finds him.
The Midnight Zoo
Twelve-year-old Andrej, nine-year-old Tomas, and their baby sister Wilma flee their Romany encampment when it is attacked by Germans during World War II, and in an abandoned town they find a zoo where the animals tell their stories, helping the children understand what has become of their lives and what it means to be free.
A Rose for the Anzac Boys
The story starts in 1915. Midge Macpherson is at school in England, having been sent there from New Zealand after her father’s death. Her brothers are both serving in the war; her younger brother was last heard of at the Gallipoli campaign earlier that year. Her cousins are serving in the British army. Keen to ‘do their bit’ for the war effort, Midge and her school friends, Ethel and Anne, start up a canteen behind the front in France. Anne, daughter of English aristocracy, can’t wait to escape her inevitable future of being married off to someone ‘suitable’, and Ethel, a Yorkshire lass, six foot tall and built like a rugby player, isn’t exactly debutante material.
As the war goes on, the girls start to see the consequences of the ‘noble cause’ they’re supporting, graphically illustrated by letters from Midge’s brother Dougie, her aunt Lallie (who is running a hospital ward in Alexandria), and a couple of Australians also serving on the front, Gordon Marks and Harry Harrison. Midge, resourceful for her years, is ‘borrowed’ by the ambulance service, thus witnessing at close hand the carnage of the battlefields, and hearing the stories of those who come back. She sings songs to the dying, learns to tolerate hit-and-miss anaesthesia and twelve-hour shifts, and meets some remarkable people. She accepts a birthday gift of a drawing, done by a blinded soldier, of a vase of roses. And, on her return to New Zealand, discovers that her world has changed, and she must seek out her future in Australia.
Prayer for the Twenty-first Century
A compelling text speaks to both young and old, expressing the deeply held hopes and fears that everyone recognizes. Illustrated with paintings, photographs, and collages, this call from the heart contains a message we all wish for our loved ones.
Perry Angel’s Suitcase
It has taken Perry Angel almost seven years to find the place where he belongs. Perry arrives at the Kingdom of Silk one day on the 10:30 express, carrying only a small and shabby suitcase embossed with five golden letters. What do those letters mean? And why won’t Perry let go of his case?
The Wish Pony
When the balloon was born I was going to tell it exactly what I thought about it, how sick it had made my mother and how it had ruined my life. Ruby’s mum is having a baby, but why does she need one of those when she’s already got a Ruby? To make matters worse, her best friend Sarah has just found another, BETTER friend. It seems like everyone is abandoning her. But when Ruby meets the mysterious Magda, who gives her a very special gift that might, just MIGHT even be a bit magical, everything begins to change.
The Wish Pony was Catherine’s first exploration of magic realism. It was partly inspired by a small ornamental horse she once saw in a relatives display cabinet.