Davey only wants to be one thing: a lifesaver. In his world, they’re larger-than-life, walking, talking heroes. He’s too young, but he starts to train in secret, challenging himself in the Bondi surf. But his secret comes to light one hot Sunday in 1938–a day that was to become infamous.

This story is set against the colourful world and characters of Bondi, after the Depression and just before the start of World War II, as ominous signs emerge from Europe and Jewish refugees arrive in Bondi.

One of a series of meticulously researched, historical novels in which each book
 is written in the form of a fictional diary of a young person living during an important event
or time period in Australian history.

They had been loading the tunnel face with gelignite when the storm came over. The lightning struck the mountain and went down through an underground watercourse to the wet rockface and set off some of the charges, exploding the rock.

Eva Fischer has moved to Cabramurra, the highest town in Australia. Eva feels on top of the world too. Surrounded by people of every nationality, Eva makes new friends and tries strange foreign food, such as pizza. Eva learns to ski and ride, and even learns that being half German isn’t so bad after all. But all around her momentous things are happening. The Snowy Mountains Scheme is under way, huge dams have been built, tunnels constructed, homes abandoned, people lost.

256-pp softcover. Middle/Upper Primary.

Amy heads to Marysville to visit her grandmother, and help in the garden and clean out her gutters. It is, after all, bushfire season.

As summer arrives, so do the fires, and Dad is busy helping control the flames in bushfires that have started burning in Victoria. But it is early February 2009, and the Black Saturday bushfire is about to encircle Amy and her family, and teach Amy first-hand about tragedy and survival.

Mel Gordon loves running, and watching Seinfeld, but mostly she loves Cathy Freeman. It's 2000 and the Olympics are going to be held in Australia. In a year of surprises, Mel finds out that Cathy Freeman is coming to talk to her school. And her family is heading to Sydney!

It becomes an unforgettable journey to Corroboree 2000, bringing together all Australians as they march and sing and celebrate Australia’s Indigenous heritage, and also acknowledge past wrongs.

I do not think that anyone alive in our time will ever forget Ned Kelly, no matter who might wish us to do so. I know I never shall. Was he a hero? Was he a villain? I cannot say, even now. Perhaps he was neither. But he will live in my memory forever, the dark and the bright, together.

North-east Victoria, 1879. Jamie Ross and his older sister Ellen are alone in the world after the death of their father. Determined to make their fortune, they head to Beechworth and straight into the midst of the search for Ned Kelly, the most notorious bushranger of all time.

Jamie is fascinated by Ned. Is he a hero wronged by the police, as some people say, or a cold-blooded murderer? A chance encounter will bring Jamie closer to the answer than he could ever imagine.

As the horrors of the First World War are drawing to a close, a danger has arisen that will kill more people around the world that the Great War did—an influenza pandemic.

Charlotte McKenzie, assisting the doctor next door, find herself experiencing at close hand the effects of this devastating disease—and when if finally attacks her own family, how will Charlotte cope?

Something is happening. I can hear bullets going off, and people are running down towards the Eureka field...

In 1854 Rosa Aarons and her family travel from London to the goldfields of Ballarat. She makes new friends, learns to ride a horse and helps her family get by. Soon Rosa becomes caught up in one of the most dramatic events in Australian history: the Eureka Stockade. As the battle between the miners and the soldiers rages around her, Rosa's main concern is the safety of her beloved Papa.

I woke up this morning and I couldn't stop crying, cos this place is not my home, even though everyone says it is. When I was a little girl Mum would always hug me when I cried and tell me everything would be all right. Who's gunna hug me here? 
Mary lives with the Burkes, but they're not her real family. She hasn't seen her real mum and dad since she was taken away from them five years ago. Everyone tells her to forget about them, but she can't. She wants to find out why she was taken, and where she really belongs.

August 1854: At thirteen, Alf has just finished school and wants to make decisions about his future. But his mum has uprooted their life in Melbourne and insisted he help her set up a store in Ballarat on the goldfields. While Alf’s not sure what he wants to do, he definitely knows he doesn’t want to be a storekeeper for the rest of his life.

As Alf makes friends with Peter Lalor and the local diggers, he realises that gold fever is just one of many things ruling life on the goldfields. But how can Alf gain independence from his mother and help his friends? Rebellion is rumbling and is about to shake the goldfields to their core.

One of a series of meticulously researched, historical novels written in the form of a fictional diary of a young person living during an important event or time period in Australian history.

Eva Fischer has moved to Cabramurra, the highest town in Australia, where she is surrounded by people of every nationality. The Snowy Mountains Scheme is under way, huge dams have been built, tunnels constructed, homes abandoned, and people lost.

I dared not move... I was a bread stealer. A chicken feather villain. A salted mutton thief. I guiltily recalled the paper, the ink, the leather pouch I had stolen. And even though I had not intended it so... I was a stowaway.

Julienne roams the fortress tunnels of Brest, France, cold, hungry and knowing only one thing about herself–her name. Soon she must abandon even that remnant of her identity. She becomes Jules, ship's boy, journeying to Botany Bay and beyond on a voyage of discovery for the glory of France, led by Commander Laperouse.

Jules/Julienne sees new and strange things on board the Boussole, but what she would most like to discover is her own history: who is Julienne Fulbert? 

One of a series of meticulously researched, historical novels in which each book is written in the form of a fictional diary of a young person living during an important event or time period in Australian history.

Lizzie Harvey, a convict transported to Sydney Cove, is starved and overworked. She has to fetch water, mend clothes, please her master, care for his china-doll daughter and tiptoe around his moody soldier son. She can barely find time to dream about the way things used to be, let alone write in her diary. But write she must. It is her only hope of reaching out to the home she has left behind, all those thousands of miles across the sea.

176-pp softcover. Middle/Upper Primary.