Materials from Australia
This time Nim’s the fish-out-of-water as she stows away on a cruise ship to save her kidnapped sea lion friend. Accompanied by her likeable iguana, Fred, the island girl lands with a splash in Manhattan, on the run from a very Bad Guy, and on her way to reunite with her friend, cowardly adventure novelist Alex Rover.
A family helps Mom deliver her baby at home. Jenni Overend and Julie Vivas celebrate the birth of a baby at home with warmth and honesty and joy.
Even as he grows stronger and closer to discovering the secret of his identity, Arthur must face further dangers and conflicts as he struggles to attain the Sixth Key from the powerful Saturday.
Troy Thompson, a Grade 6 student, in trying to understand the art of poetry, as he stumbles over the Japanese form of ‘Haiku’, the ballad, the limerick and the sonnet. At the end of the year, Troy’s poetry has improved and his respect for his teacher has grown too! An entertaining introduction to poetry, which can be read as a narrative. It is divided into assignments for the reader to follow and participate in and is peppered by Troy’s doodles and margin comments to his teacher. Ms Kranke obviously has quite a soft spot for this cheeky young student, and encourages him on his way, whether writing of his love for his school sweetheart, Kylie, or revealing the heroic and moving death of his policeman father.
Bee can’t understand what her father sees in Jazzi. Ever since Bee’s mom died, she, her dad, and her two guinea pigs, Fifi and Lulu, have been getting along just fine. Now Bee is supposed to welcome Jazzi, with her bangled skirts and her rock-hard scones and her new way of looking at everything. Imagine how Bee feels when her dad invites Jazzi to move in! Life certainly gets more complicated, especially after Bee discovers that there is something big that Jazzi has not told Dad. Yet knowing the secret makes Bee see another side of Jazzi, one that oddly enough makes Bee more comfortable.
The Floods may bury relatives in their backyard, grow cobwebs in every room, and eat slugs for breakfast, but this loving family of wizards and witches is a delight to have next door unlike their neighbors the Dents—a mean, nasty family that shatters the calm of the whole block. Maybe a little of the Floods’ magic will cure the Dents of their obnoxious ways. And if not, a lot of magic will rid the neighborhood of the Dents once and for all.
A man gives his wife and daughter a last kiss and boards a steamship to cross the ocean. He’s embarking on the most painful yet important journey of his life – he’s leaving home to build a better future for his family. Shaun Tan evokes universal aspects of an immigrant’s experience through a singular work of the imagination. He does so using brilliantly clear and mesmerizing images. Because the main character can’t communicate in words, the book forgoes them too. But while the reader experiences the main character’s isolation, he also shares his ultimate joy.
This book is a wordless picturebook.
In the big city, Wombat and Fox have many adventures. They don’t go looking for trouble, but the city is a surprising place and trouble and mishaps have a way of finding them, changing the course of the day for Wombat and Fox, Croc, Bandicoot, the Hippo Sisters and the mischievous Five Monkeys. These are their stories.
As his odd parents fight the regional environmental health officer about their dung-covered house and his melodramatic younger brother demands attention, fourteen-year-old Australian Seth Parrot simply seeks the muscular woman of his dreams.
Cat. Dog. Tall Tree. Thank goodness for that! A cat’s life is not all fun and games, or even all milk and mice. With very few words used to convey all kinds of action, Mike Dumbleton’s sparse yet descriptive text joins perfectly with Craig Smith’s whimsical illustrations. Cat will have young listeners on the edges of their seats, ready to join Cat…thank goodness for that!