Cirrus@Austlit

'Odo and Eleanor did not set out to find their destiny. At best they were hoping for eels. the comical anticlimax if the opening tells us that we are once again in the hands of masters : that this new, somewhat medieaval-tasting series will live up to the reputation of this talented duo - one working from Sydney, one from Adelaide - for providing topical, well-written entertaining fantasy and unobtrusively modelling high ethical standards.' (Introduction)

'Julianne De Marchi has a superpower. She can't yet control it and she doesn't know where it came from, nut an electrical current surges restlessly beneath her skin and tends to burst out when she is anxious or emotional.' (Introduction)

'The latest addition to Black Dog's award winning Our Stories series is a particularly apt and personal one: well loved Dragon author Carole Wilkinson's parents came to Australia as Ten Pound Poms, nearly 13 year-old Carole and her younger brother Brian travelling free; illustrator Liz Anellis is a more recent import from the U.K. ' (Introduction)

'This anomaly of a book is one that some young readers or read-tos will remember all their lives; a picture book of wonderful, soft charcoal and pencil animal studies - more fine art than illustration - all filled with character and motion; a letter that masquerades as a chapter book in five relaxed, clear large print parts full of curly metaphors and word-music; a sideways sort of morality tale accumulating and developing from chapter to chapter in a sophisticated, slow-building anatomy of friendship that, by the end, triumphantly belies it's title.' (Introduction)