Cirrus@Austlit

'Dance of the freaky green gold is the Silver winner in the Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature 2007. Rick and his family have to move in with Uncle Bert, an eccentric shift engineer at Ashby power station. Uncle Bert is very secretive about his latest scheme, but Rick just knows it has something to do with the people experimenting with tubes of green goo at the dam. Rick and his new friend Sipho decide to investigate further. ' (Publication summary)

'Outside, he sniffed the smells that hung in the quiet stillness - the bitter-sweet peppercorns and the tangy saltbush ... Even the dust had a scent of far-off places, as if it had drifted miles. It made you think of warm, red earth being blown along by the wind.

'In this timeless story, a boy struggles to come to terms with the loneliness of the Australian outback and the ruthlessness of living and working on a remote property. With Brolga the cattle dog and her pup Rags as his only companions, the boy begins a journey of self-discovery. It is a journey that will take him outside the confines of the Yamboorah cattle station, and into the vast, unrelenting sandhills beyond.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (UQP reprint).

'It's hot, dry and sweaty on Ash Road, where Graham, Harry and Wallace are getting their first taste of independence, camping, just the three of them. When they accidentally light a bushfire no one would have guessed how far it would go. All along Ash Road fathers go off to fight the fires and mothers help in the first aid centres. The children of Prescott are left alone, presumed safe, until it's the fire itself that reaches them. These children are forced to face a major crisis with only each other and the two old men left in their care.

'The best selling Ash Road is an action-packed adventure story, so evocative of rural Australia you can taste the Eucalyptus.' (Publication summary : Text Classics)

'On a fateful day in Hills End, a timber-milling town in the mountains of Victoria, seven children and their teacher set off to explore caves in the nearby mountains said to contain ancient Aboriginal rock art. While they are deep inside the mountain caves a storm of tremendous violence all but sweeps the town away and threatens to leave them stranded on the mountain.

'Tackling flooded creeks and washed out paths and fallen trees, the children make their way back to Hills End injured and exhausted, only to face a new battle to survive in the denuded town. ' (Publication summary)