Dog Tales


Emily Rodda - 2001
    Mavis is actually a goat, but she didn't know this and none of the others liked to tell her. Life for the Dolan Street dogs is not all lying around watching Dog Hospital, it can be very exciting. There's the day they saved the world, the haunting, the night the burglars came ...

Daughter of the Regiment


Jackie French - 1998
    It was bright and strangely piercing, like a bit of sun had wandered in by mistake. Who is the girl through the hole in the chook-house? Is it a hole in time? And how can you help someone who lived more than 150 years ago. Harry dreads leaving the farm to go to boarding school next year. Cissie is an orphaned girl living with the soldiers at the garrison 150 years ago. Something more powerful than time has drawn them both together.

The Salt Madonna


Catherine Noske - 2020
    There are two stories here.Hannah Mulvey left her island home as a teenager. But her stubborn, defiant mother is dying, and now Hannah has returned to Chesil, taking up a teaching post at the tiny schoolhouse, doing what she can in the long days of this final year.But though Hannah cannot pinpoint exactly when it begins, something threatens her small community. A girl disappears entirely from class. Odd reports and rumours reach her through her young charges. People mutter on street corners, the church bell tolls through the night and the island's women gather at strange hours...And then the miracles begin.A page-turning, thought-provoking portrayal of a remote community caught up in a collective moment of madness, of good intentions turned terribly awry. A blistering examination of truth and power, and how we might tell one from the other.'Catherine Noske's debut novel grapples with questions of familial obligation, complicity, remorse and the fallibility of memory...The Salt Madonna will appeal to readers who enjoyed Laura Elizabeth Woollett's Beautiful Revolutionary.' Books+Publishing'Catherine Noske's The Salt Madonna is Australian Gothic at its most sublime and uncanny. Superbly atmospheric and darkly unsettling, the characters are haunted by their colonial pasts, manifested in guilty silence...Noske's taut, subversive writing exposes unspeakable truths buried in dazzling stories, miracles and epiphanies.' Cassandra Atherton

The Children of the King


Sonya Hartnett - 2012
    Cecily and Jeremy have been sent to live with their uncle Peregrine in the English countryside, safe from the war, along with a young refugee named May. But when Cecily and May find two mysterious boys hiding in the ruins of a nearby castle, an extraordinary adventure begins.

The Young Visiters


Daisy Ashford - 1919
    The notebook containing the novel was rediscovered by her in adult life and sent by a friend to Frank Swinnerton, the English novelist, critic, editor and essayist. Published in 1919 by Chatto and Windus, with its original misspellings and an arch introduction by “Peter Pan” author J. M. Barrie, it was an immediate bestseller. Its child's view of high society (dukes and earls having ‘levies’ and residing in the ‘Crystall Pallace’) and its heavily romantic plot make it an engaging and enduring popular work. Source: jrank.org

Little Lord Fauntleroy


Frances Hodgson Burnett - 1886
    Cedric Errol is a generous, kind, and exemplary middle-class American boy who is suddenly found to be the heir of the Earl of Dorincourt. Saying loving goodbyes to his working-class friends, Cedric goes to England together with his mother to embrace his new fortune. His grandfather, the old earl, is a bitter old man ridden with gout and a foul temper, trusting no one. However the angelic boy elicits a profound transformation in the grandfather, which not only benefits the castle household but the whole populace of the earldom. If only the old man's heart would soften toward Cedric's estranged mother, the family would be healed at last. And when another potential heir to the earldom makes a claim, it seems that everything is lost.... But all things are possible through a child's innocent trust, true friendship, and unconditional love.

A House for a Mouse


Lisette Starr - 2019
    Oscar the mouse wants somewhere warm to stay for the night!"One thundery night I was cosy and warm,under the covers and safe from the storm.I was lying awake counting sheep in my headWhen I heard something moving under my bed.Suddenly I was trembling with fear.Could there be a monster about to appear?Then I heard it again, that scuttling sound.It was so scary it made my heart pound!"A delightful story with bright, fun illustrations and a great positive message!"A House for a Mouse" is a bright, fun way for younger children to learn about friendship, kindness and generosity.When a young boy hears a noise under his bed, he fears there may be a monster about to appear. But it isn't a monster, it is a little mouse looking for somewhere warm and dry to spend the night. Combining wonderfully vibrant illustrations with the power of rhythm and rhyme,"A House for a Mouse" is a perfect bedtime story and a must read for kids starting their reading journey."RED BEETLE BOOKS"Following in the great tradition of moral tales, Red Beetle Books are designed to teach important life lessons in a fun and entertaining way.Exploring subjects like sharing, kindness, friendship, understanding differences, facing challenges and adapting to change, Red Beetle Books will help your child develop their emotional intelligence, while fostering a life long love of books and reading.

The Nine Lives of Alexander Baddenfield


John Bemelmans Marciano - 2013
     One day, Alexander has an astonishing idea.  Why not transplant the nine lives from his cat into himself?  Suddenly, Alexander has lives to spare, and goes about using them up, attempting the most outrageous feats he can imagine.  Only when his lives start running out, and he is left with only one just like everyone else, does he realize how reckless he has been. With its wickedly funny story and equally clever illustrations, this is dark humor at its most delicious.

Heap House


Edward Carey - 2013
    He lives in the Heaps, a vast sea of lost and discarded items collected from all over London. At the centre is Heap House, a puzzle of houses, castles, homes and mysteries reclaimed from the city and built into a living maze of staircases and scurrying rats.The Iremongers are a mean and cruel family, robust and hardworking, but Clod has an illness. He can hear the objects whispering. His birth object, a universal bath plug, says ‘James Henry’, Cousin Tummis’s tap is squeaking ‘Hilary Evelyn Ward-Jackson’ and something in the attic is shouting ‘Robert Burrington‘ and it sounds angry.A storm is brewing over Heap House. The Iremongers are growing restless and the whispers are getting louder. When Clod meets Lucy Pennant, a girl newly arrived from the city, everything changes. The secrets that bind Heap House together begin to unravel to reveal a dark truth that threatens to destroy Clod’s world.

Osbert the Avenger


Christopher William Hill - 2012
    Meet Osbert Brinkhoff, the unlikeliest of avengers. His is a tale of dark delights and ghastly goings-on, of injustice and revenge. The villains are vicious. The settings are sinister. And good does NOT always prevail...If you prefer cleavers to kittens and fiends to fairies...then welcome to the GRUESOMELY FUNNY Tales from Schwartzgarten.

The Mysterious Howling


Maryrose Wood - 2009
    Luckily, Miss Penelope Lumley is no ordinary governess. Only fifteen years old and a recent graduate of the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, Penelope embraces the challenge of her new position. Though she is eager to instruct the children in Latin verbs and the proper use of globes, first she must help them overcome their canine tendencies. But mysteries abound at Ashton Place: Who are these three wild creatures, and how did they come to live in the vast forests of the estate? Why does Old Timothy, the coachman, lurk around every corner? Will Penelope be able to teach the Incorrigibles table manners and socially useful phrases in time for Lady Constance's holiday ball? And what on earth is a schottische?

The Kensington Reptilarium


N.J. Gemmell - 2013
    Enter if you dare . . . The Caddy kids are having the best time. Dad’s away hunting and eldest sister Kick is looking after Scruff, Pin and Bert – and they’re loving it. Until they find out their father is missing . . .This is the story of how four loud, grubby urchins from the Aussie outback find themselves in the heart of London, where the first peacetime Christmas after the six long, hard years of World War II promises to be a big one.Except for the Caddy kids. Their Scrooge-like Uncle Basti hates children. He prefers the company of the hundreds of snakes in his terrace house – the fabled Kensington Reptilarium. But fate lends the Caddy kids a helping hand in the guise of the outraged authorities who want to close down the Reptilarium. With the police about to descend – and the kids about to riot if they don’t get their Christmas wishes – can sour old Basti possibly be transformed in time?A feel-good tale that will have you cheering on these four fearless bush kids as they take on the world!

Treasure Island


Robert Louis Stevenson - 1883
    From the moment young Jim Hawkins first encounters the sinister Blind Pew at the Admiral Benbow Inn until the climactic battle for treasure on a tropic isle, the novel creates scenes and characters that have fired the imaginations of generations of readers. Written by a superb prose stylist, a master of both action and atmosphere, the story centers upon the conflict between good and evil - but in this case a particularly engaging form of evil. It is the villainy of that most ambiguous rogue Long John Silver that sets the tempo of this tale of treachery, greed, and daring. Designed to forever kindle a dream of high romance and distant horizons, Treasure Island is, in the words of G. K. Chesterton, 'the realization of an ideal, that which is promised in its provocative and beckoning map; a vision not only of white skeletons but also green palm trees and sapphire seas.' G. S. Fraser terms it 'an utterly original book' and goes on to write: 'There will always be a place for stories like Treasure Island that can keep boys and old men happy.'

A Most Magical Girl


Karen Foxlee - 2016
    Annabel Grey is primed for a proper life as a young lady in Victorian England. But when her mother suddenly disappears, she’s put in the care of two eccentric aunts who thrust her into a decidedly un-ladylike life, full of potions and flying broomsticks and wizards who eat nothing but crackers. Magic, indeed! Who ever heard of such a thing?Before Annabel can assess the most ladylike way to respond to her current predicament, she is swept up in an urgent quest. Annabel is pitted against another young witch, Kitty, to rescue the sacred Moreover Wand from the dangerous underworld that exists beneath London. The two girls outsmart trolls, find passage through a wall of faerie bones, and narrowly escape a dragon, but it doesn’t take long for Annabel to see that the most dangerous part of her journey is her decision to trust this wild, magical girl.Sparkling with Karen Foxlee’s enchanting writing, this is a bewitching tale of one important wand and two most magical girls.

Pigtastic (Accept people for who they are!)


Scott Gordon - 2011
    Introduce your children to a great message about accepting people for who they are. Great for bedtime!Bestseller Rankings:#1 in Kindle eBooks > Children's eBooks > Animals > Pigs (01/11/12)#1 in Books > Children's Books > Animals > Pigs (01/11/12)