When Moreton and his parents, Go-ma and Go-pa, are forced to leave their beautiful home in Sydney's Botanic Gardens, they decide they need to move somewhere that's high above the ground, away from all the humans. So when they discover the little sun-filled room at the top of the clock tower at No. 1 Martin Place, the goanna family are sure they've found the perfect home. But the Pitt Street Cat rules Martin Place, and he's not interested in welcoming new neighbours. With the help of some unlikely friends, can the goannas finally tame Australia's meanest cat? Ages 6+ 'I love an animal story with a difference, and The Goannas of No. 1 Martin Place delivers ... This works as a first chapter book but also as a read-aloud book for any age, with amusing turns of phrases and instantly likeable characters.' BOOKSELLER + PUBLISHER
Vernon Lee Walker, a young Englishman from industrial Wolverhampton, meets his death on a beach on Pentecost Island in the South Pacific on the eve of Christmas 1887. Why did Vernon die, in what circumstances, and who was responsible? Was he, as once branded, simply a 'bad colonist'? Or was he a Candide, an innocent abroad, mixing invisibly with the rich and famous, manipulated by a calculating brother, unable to change the world around him? An historian finds Vernon's letters home to England, spanning a dozen years. With decreasing frequency, these follow his trajectory, first in Melbourne and Sydney, then as he yields to the spell of the Pacific. But what happens between the lines? Does he fall in love with his brother's wife? What does a boy not tell his mother? The novelist steps in. This is a unique fusion of authentic history and informed invention - a tragic story of colonialism in Australia and the Pacific, told with compassion, humor and a deep understanding of time and place.
Ant (short for Samantha) loves playing soccer with her friends at lunchtime. But when one of the boys decides she's too slow, Ant feels completely left out. Can she come up with a plan to turn things around -- or is she doomed to spend lunchtimes alone on the playground?
Val Plumwood was an eminent environmental philosopher and activist who was prominent in the development of radical ecophilosophy from the early 1970s until her death in 2008. Her book Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (1992) has become a classic. In 1985 she was attacked by a crocodile while kayaking alone in the Kakadu national park in the Northern Territory. She was death rolled three times before being released from the crocodile’s jaws. She crawled for hours through swamp with appalling injuries before being rescued. The experience made her well placed to write about cultural responses to death and predation. The first section of The Eye of the Crocodile consists of chapters intended for a book on crocodiles that remained unfinished at the time of Val’s death. The remaining chapters are previously published papers brought together to form an overview of Val’s ideas on death, predation and nature.
In a mysterious castle in Libya where he stumbles upon some unexpected vestiges of the past, the narrator is inspired to tell the story of his extraordinary experiences in Australia. It is a story about the meeting of two cultures - Italian and Aboriginal - and about the emotions aroused in the writer by his chance encounters with people and places that provide vivid, but fragile, proof of this meeting. The engrossing search for a distant reality (with immediate resonance for the present day) intertwines magic storytelling and sociological curiosity, historical reconstruction and notes on a journey. The reader is caught up in an intriguing tale that uncovers some fascinating truths about Italian migrants to Australia during the last Gold Rush, from the close of the 19th century to the first decades of the 20th. Polenta and Goanna is a brave and unflinching portrayal of a controversial and highly sensitive topic.[...] The book reflects an honest and sincere attempt by an Italian writer to imaginatively explore the experience of intimacy and love between members of two radically different cultures. Stephen Bennetts, University of Western Australia
When it is recollected how much has been written to describe the Settlement of New South Wales, it seems necessary if not to offer an apology, yet to assign a reason, for an additional publication. The embarked in the fleet which sailed to found the establishment at Botany Bay. He shortly after published a Narrative of the Proceedings and State of the Colony, brought up to the beginning of July, 1788, which was well received, and passed through three editions. This could not but inspire both confidence and gratitude; but gratitude, would be badly manifested were he on the presumption of former favour to lay claim to present indulgence. He resumes the subject in the humble hope of communicating information, and increasing knowledge, of the country, which he describes. He resided at Port Jackson nearly four years: from the 20th of January, 1788, until the 18th of December, 1791. To an active and contemplative mind, a new country is an inexhaustible source of curiosity and speculation. It was the author's custom not only to note daily occurrences, and to inspect and record the progression of improvement; but also, when not prevented by military duties, to penetrate the surrounding country in different directions, in order to examine its nature, and ascertain its relative geographical situations. The greatest part of the work is inevitably composed of those materials which a journal supplies; but wherever reflections could be introduced without fastidiousness and parade, he has not scrupled to indulge them, in common with every other deviation which the strictness of narrative would allow. When this publication was nearly ready for the press; and when many of the opinions which it records had been declared, fresh accounts from Port Jackson were received. To the state of a country, where so many anxious trying hours of his life have passed, the author cannot feel indifferent. If by any sudden revolution of the laws of nature; or by any fortunate discovery of those on the spot, it has really become that fertile and prosperous land, which some represent it to be, he begs permission to add his voice to the general congratulation. He rejoices at its success: but it is only justice to himself and those with whom he acted to declare, that they feel no cause of reproach that so complete and happy an alteration did not take place at an earlier period.
