Cirrus@Austlit

'Why does humanity cling to warfare when it destroys the land and people the armies try to claim?

'Claverton Castle, 1940. Eagles and Spitfires fly in the skies of England as Lady Deanna, the aristocratic granddaughter of the Duke of Claverton, spends her days shovelling manure and her evenings in blue satin, attending dinner parties to gather intelligence from the many Nazi sympathisers among Britain's powerful upper classes. She is an excellent spy: the information she gleans may prove vital in the months ahead. But when she becomes enmeshed in the German plot to restore the Duke of Windsor to the throne of England and ensure an alliance with Hitler, she must feign cooperation and risk her life for the sake of her country.

'As war devastates Europe, 'Lady Dee' must solve other mysteries, too. Why do the three orphaned children she has taken into her home and grown to love refuse to reveal their identity? What reason can British Intelligence have to warn her away from Sam Murray, a decorated Australian pilot and the only man she feels she could ever marry? Is the wounded soldier who stumbles along the secret caves below her home truly the missing Duke of Claverton?' (Publication summary)

'The year is 1859 and the goldfields are filled with diggers -- and danger!

'Orphaned twelve-year-old Tigg is the Bandicoot Bushranger, the youngest bushranger on the Ballarat goldfields in 1859.

'When a robbery goes wrong, Tigg must flee in disguise as one of the tens of thousands of Chinese men and boys braving heat, thirst, starvation and murderous attacks on the long road from Robe in South Australia to the goldfields in Victoria.

'But even further danger threatens. Who has offered a large sum of money for Tigg's capture? And is the mysterious Henry Lau a friend or enemy?

'To be safe, Tigg must solve the greatest mystery of all.' (Publication summary)

'The fourth book in the best-selling Jackie French historical series that places girls centre stage.

'Ming Qong is convinced that girls have changed the world throughout history.

'History's sister, the mysterious Herstory, believes that the more you know about the past, the better you can understand the future. And so she now sends Ming back in time to work as a maid in an isolated English mansion to see a girl change the world in 1829.

'But which girl? The young mistress of the house is lying in bed blind and immobile, recovering from the measles. Abandoned by her aristocratic mother and the rest of her family, she may never walk - or even read and write - again.

'Ming becomes friends with another scullery maid, Hepzibah, who is desperately teaching herself to read and who longs to free slaves, as she and her parents had been. But what hope has a scullery maid?

'When Hepzibah is accused of a crime that might send her to the gallows, it is up to Ming to prove her innocent, as well as find the person in this lonely house who will - surprisingly - help pioneer the computer revolution.

'From one of the Australia's favourite writers comes an inspiring series for all the young people who will, one day, change the world.' (Publication summary)

'From the award-winning creators of Flood, Fire, Cyclone, Drought, Pandemic, Earthquake and Plague. I was born of twisting air, touching ground and spinning there. Do not laugh, just feed me thunder, I will soar and roar and plunder ...' (Publication summary) 

'From bestselling author Jackie French comes a compelling story of murder, mystery, and mutiny on the high seas - and a love so intense it can overcome two different cultures.

'You never know what the sea will give you ... or what it will take back.

'When Mair McCrae follows her island tradition and hunts for a husband cast up on the beach, she has no notion that the naked, half-drowned man she rescues is not just Captain Michael Dawson, heir to a major shipping firm, but that he's also obsessed by a 'ghost ship' carrying golden cargo.

'On Big Henry Island women make the decisions and knit the patterns that mark a man as their own. But Big Henry is also a volcano, and threatening to erupt. Yet when Mair agrees to accompany Michael home, she finds that the Australian comfort he promised has a danger just as real: a social system that tries to keep women confined to small roles at the edge of men's lives.

'And as Michael hunts for the 'Ghost' in his revolutionary new steamship, a string of mysterious deaths upends Mair's new life in Sydney,

'Who is committing these murders, and why is Mair the only one who realises what is happening?' (Publication summary)

'A companion title to the best-selling The Fire Wombat, this is the story of Myrtle, a small turtle who, by heading uphill, tells the other animals that a flood is coming.

'Myrtle the turtle knows everything about the waterhole where she lives in the creek. She can also sense the giant flood that is coming, long before other animals or humans.

'And when Myrtle begins her long, slow climb up the mountain to safety, who will follow her?

'From the award-winning duo of The Fire Wombat, Jackie French and Danny Snell have now created a fascinating and beautifully illustrated story about Myrtle, a Common Long-necked Turtle; reptiles that can predict the weather very accurately.' (Publication summary)

'In 1916 sixteen-year-old Jean McLain is working as a Post Office assistant in England. But when she wins a national Morse Code competition, the British army makes a request Jean cannot refuse – to take a secret position as a signaller in France.

'If Jean can keep the signals flowing between the soldiers at the Front and at headquarters, Britain might possibly win the war.

'But the British army are determined to hide their desperation – they will go on to burn every document that showed how women and girls were working behind the scenes, in the trenches, and even in battles during World War I.

'Decades later, and half a world away, an old woman on a motorbike tells the young man she has rescued from a flash flood the story of 'the telegraph girl': the friends she lost, the man who loved her, and the happiness she so surprisingly found again.

'Based on true events, this story of adventure, courage and unshakable loyalty restores women and girls to their place in history that the authorities tried to erase.' (Publication summary)

'Sixteen-year-old Nipper and his Gallipoli mates Lanky, Spud, Bluey and Wallaby Joe are starving, freezing and ill-equipped. By November 1915 they know that that there is more to winning a war than courage. The Gallipoli campaign has been lost.

'Nipper has played cricket with the Turks in the opposing dugout, dodged rocket fire and rescued desperate and drowning men when the blizzard snow melted. He is one of the few trusted with the secret kept from even most of the officers: how an entire army will vanish from the Peninsula over three impeccably planned nights.

'Based on first-hand accounts of those extraordinary last weeks of the Gallipoli campaign, this is the fascinating 'lost story' of how 150,000 men – and their horses and equipment – were secretly moved to waiting ships without a single life lost. An unforgettable story told through the eyes of a boy who lied about his age to defend his country.' (Publication summary)

'Ming Qong is convinced that girls have changed history throughout the world.

'She's faced danger and adventure when Herstory sent her to the past to witness girls' bravery in the incredible feats left out of 'histories'. Now Ming asks Herstory for another time-travelling quest – this time, one that is less confronting.

'Ming finds herself in relative luxury, heading to an unknown destination on a ship carrying royal Saxon sheep, travelling with the girls who care for them.

'What do female shepherds have to do with history? And is it even possible for sheep to be royal?

'As Ming knows only too well, change is never easy, so how can one girl – and a sheep – change the world?' (Publication summary)

'From bestselling author Jackie French comes a book about the secrets we carry, those that we unearth - and those that are too dangerous to tell.

'The once impoverished medical student Agnes Glock is now the fabulously wealthy Mrs Mulberry. Her estate in the mountains is magnificent, a haven for those too ravaged by the Great War to cope with the society that first condemned them to battle and now shuns them.

'The War has, however, stolen Agnes's chance to graduate as a doctor, as well as the fiance she adored. Her husband, Douglas Mulberry, remains shellshocked and unable to speak. Their scandalous marriage is a farce, an act of kindness to keep Douglas's fortune from his uncle's grasp.

'A chance visit to a circus brings about a mystery in the form of a fairylike child whose guardians claim was brought up by dingoes. The child cannot speak and seems deformed. But Agnes is inexplicably drawn to her and believes she can be cured.

'The decision to save the child will bring Agnes's lost fiance into her life again, as well as the love of her husband who finds his voice as the three try to solve the mystery of the 'dingo girl'.

'Agnes has put aside her own life and the dreams she once had. But now she has choices, with the main question the hardest: Who is Mrs Agnes Mulberry?' (Publication summary)

'Celebrating the twentieth anniversary, this is the story of Mothball, one of the world's most famous wombats - and where it all began.

'She is small. She is scared. She is lost.

'She is a baby wombat who needs a home.

'She is Mothball, a wombat destined to become famous.

'This is the (almost) true story of one small wombat who learnt how to train her humans - and inspired the internationally best-selling picture book Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley.'(Publication summary) 

'An empowering and exhilarating look at the girls who went before us, and the way they shaped the world.

'Ming Qong is convinced that girls have changed the world throughout history.

'So when Ming is thrust back in time to Belgium during WWI, only to be rescued from a burning cellar by Marie -- an experienced spy at only twelve years of age -- she finally has her proof. Marie is involved with a female secret resistance group who risk their lives to outwit the German troops.

'But Ming now faces a tough choice: will she send coded messages and risk her own life in this war on which the future depends?

'As Ming learns, change is never easy, so how can one girl change the world?

'From one of Australia's favourite writers comes an inspiring series for all the young people who will, one day, change the world.' (Publication summary)

'An empowering and exhilarating look at the girls who went before us, and the way they shaped the world.

'Twelve-year-old Ming Qong is convinced that girls must have changed the world, even if they are rarely mentioned in history books.

'So when Ming gets the chance to go back in time, she imagines herself changing destinies from a glittering palace or an explorer's ship. Instead, she ends up in Australia in 1898, living a tough life as Flo Watson on a drought-stricken farm.

'Luckily, Ming is rescued by Flo's Aunt McTavish, from Sydney. Wealthy Aunt McTavish belongs to Louisa Lawson's Suffragist Society, who are desperately and courageously fighting for women's rights. And Ming is determined to get involved, to make a difference.

'But change is never easy, so how can one girl change the world?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Down below the giant rumbled, All around us buildings crumbled, Newcastle began to shake ... ‘Quake!’ yelled someone. ‘Out! Earthquake!’

'From the award-winning creators of Flood, Fire, Cyclone, Drought and Pandemic.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'SOME GIRLS ARE BORN TO BE LOVED, SOME ARE BORN TO BE USEFUL, AND SOME ARE BORN TO BE BAD ...

'Indulged and wealthy Kat Fitzhubert is sold in an arranged marriage to a colony across the world. Lady Viola Montefiore is the dark-skinned changeling of a ducal family, kept hidden and then shipped away. Titania Boot is as broad as a carthorse, and as useful.

'On the long sea voyage from their homeland of England, these three women are fast bonded in an unlikely friendship. In the turmoil of 1850s Australia - which has reinvented itself from convict colony to a land of gold rushes and illusive riches - one woman forges a business empire, while another turns to illegal brewery, working alongside a bushranger as the valleys around her are destroyed. The third vanishes on her wedding day, in a scandal that will intrigue and mystify Sydney's polite society and beyond.

'In this magnificent and broad-sweeping saga, award-winning author Jackie French defies the myth of colonial women as merely wives, servants, petty thieves or whores. Instead, in this masterful storyteller's hands, these three women will be arbiters of a destiny far richer than the bewitching glitter and lure of gold.'

Source : publisher's blurb

''Joy comes in the morning'

'It's Christmas Eve in 1932, and Joey, Ellie and their parents are droving cattle in the drought.

'How will Santa find them on the long and dusty road? And will there be pudding and presents and a tree in the morning?

'But Joey knows that Christmas always comes.' (Publication summary)