Cirrus@Austlit

'Fang Fang is a young girl who migrated to Australia from China with her parents when she was little. Her desire to be as Australian as her classmates brings her into conflict with her mother, who is anxious that Fang Fang does not lose her cultural heritage. However, when Fang Fang's cousin Lily visits from China, Fang Fang is delighted to find that Lily speaks perfect English and is interested in the same music and singers.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Friendship is a slippery notion. We lose friends as we change and our friends don't, or as we form other alliances, or as we betray our friends or are ourselves betrayed ...

'Alice, Hartley, Mitsy and Jamie are kids growing up in Broome before the Second World War. Their lives, although very different, are bound by friendship. Hartley and Alice Penrose are the children of an uneducated pearling master and a cultivated, disgruntled mother. Mitsy Sennosuke is Japanese, the daughter of Zeke, a diver working for Hartley and Alice's father, and Sadako, who makes soy sauce in a tin shed factory. Jamie Kilian is the son of a local magistrate, recently moved north from the city. Together, they unconsciously cross the boundaries of class and race, as they swim, joke and watch films in the cinema in Sheba Lane.

'But these happy, untroubled times end when lives are lost in a terrible cyclone, Alice falls for a wealthy cattleman pilot, a young woman is assaulted, and Hartley and Jamie compete for the love of Mitsy. The Second World War brings further strain into their lives. The four friends are no longer children but old enough to fight for their country. As Japanese bombs begin to fall like silver rain on northern Australia, loyalties are divided and friendships take on an altogether different form …

'This thrilling and beautifully written new novel from Garry Disher evokes an era of Australia caught up in the events of war and its effects on people torn apart from all they know and hold dear in childhood.' (Source: Publisher's website)

'My Place, the classic Australian picture book, is a "time machine" which takes the reader back into the past. It depicts the history of one particular piece of land in Sydney from 1788 to 1988 through the stories of the various children who have lived there. It aims to teach the reader about the history of Australia, about families, settlers, multiculturalism, and the traditional owners of the land. Each child's story covers a decade in time, showing their particular dress, customs and family life.

'The book also features maps that the successive generations of children have 'drawn' which demonstrate the things that have changed - as well as the things that have remained constant. My Place ultimately aims to show "that everyone is part of History" and that "every place has a story as old as the earth".' -- Provided by publisher (2008 ed.)

"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.

'A young girl's life changes when she visits her great-aunt in the Queensland countryside, and learns of the strange, in triguing history of Mirrabooka.'

'When Ernie goes to live in an Aboriginal community in northern Australia, the people, climate, plants and animals are all new to him. Here are his letters to Clive, Nicky, Rosie, Frank, Tessa and Celeste, describing the life he discovers with his new friends in their wild and beautiful land.

'Alison Lester visited Arnhem Land in 1996 and 1997 as a guest of the Gunbalanya Community School with her friend and fellow author Liz Honey. Together they worked with staff and students of the school to produce poems, plays, puppets and paintings. This book is based on a story the upper Primary students made about their lives, called We Love Gunbalanya . Arnhem Land is owned by the Aboriginal people who have lived there for more than 50,000 years. There are many different tribes and language groups throughout Arnhem Land, but at Gunbalanya, where this book is set, the main language spoken is Kunwinjku. ' (Publication summary)

'"Deadly, unna?" He was always saying that. All the Nungas did, but Dumby more than any of them. Dumby Red and Blacky don't have a lot in common. Dumby's the star of the footy team, he's got a killer smile and the knack with girls, and he's a Nunga. Blacky's a gutless wonder, needs braces, never knows what to say, and he's white. But they're friends... and it could be deadly, unna? This gutsy novel, set in a small coastal town in South Australia is a rites-of-passage story about two boys confronting the depth of racism that exists all around them.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

The Murray River of the 1950s was full of fish, and its surrounding landscape covered with vineyards and orchards. As a young boy Ian ranged along its banks and backwaters, catching yabbies, hunting swans and camping along the creeks at night while fishing for pondi, or cod.

But if tucker was plentiful, money was not, for there were few employment opportunities for Aboriginal people.

Ian's narrative paintings recall the stories of his youth.