Cirrus@Austlit

'Bridie's Fire is the tale of a fiery Irish girl who leaves Ireland to find a home for herself in goldrush Australia.

'Bridie's world is torn apart when her parents and baby brother die in the Great Hunger. She leaves Ireland, and strikes out alone to claim a life for herself in Australia, on the other side of the ocean.

'Bridie's Fire is heart-warming story of courage and resilience. It affirms Kirsty Murray's keen understanding of the human spirit. Starting in the 1840s and ending in present-day Australia, The Children of the Wind quartet tells the stories of four courageous young people, Bridie, Billy, Colm and Maeve, born fifty years apart. The central character from each book becomes a mentor to the child in the next.' (Publication summary)

'Nicky Flamel, a motorbike racing ace, Andromeda Frost, a beautiful English socialite, Otis Falcon, a young American ex-boxer ... When three teenagers find themselves on a remote island, they discover that they have one thing in common - psychic powers triggered by a recent accident. But it is no accident that they are on Archangel Island, a top-secret institute that trains talented young psychics to battle a "Secret Army" - the evil Nazis and their associates.

'When Andromeda escapes from Archangel Island, she falls into the clutches of sinister SS wizard, Dr Karl Totenhexer, and into the heart of his evil plans. Otis and Nicky are sent to rescue Andromeda, but are their powers enough to defeat Totenhexer and his evil crew?' Source: ABC website (http://shop.abc.net.au/).

"The Arrival is a migrant story told as a series of wordless images that might seem to come from a long forgotten time. A man leaves his wife and child in an impoverished town, seeking better prospects in an unknown country on the other side of a vast ocean. He eventually finds himself in a bewildering city of foreign customs, peculiar animals, curious floating objects and indecipherable languages. With nothing more than a suitcase and a handful of currency, the immigrant must find a place to live, food to eat and some kind of gainful employment. He is helped along the way by sympathetic strangers, each carrying their own unspoken history: stories of struggle and survival in a world of incomprehensible violence, upheaval and hope." (Source: Shaun Tan website)

"The rabbits came many grandparents ago.

They build houses, made roads, had children.

They cut down trees.

A whole continent of rabbits..." (back cover)

An allegorical story using rabbits, an introduced species, to represent the arrival of Europeans in Australia and the subsequent widespread environmental destruction.