When families break down, it's a moment of truth. A compelling new young adult novel from the author of the 2006 CBCA Honour Book No Worries

I'm an ocean cliff. He's erosion. I feel a large part of me crumbling into the sea, yet somehow I don't mind at all.

Caitlin and David have much in common. They're the same age, they go to the same school, they're both in the school play. And each of them is watching their family fall apart. It's a violent situation, but violence isn't always physical, and neither are threats. In their own ways, Caitlin and David are in it together, but separate. And somewhere, somehow, inevitably, it all has to come to a head.

With Give Me Truth, Bill Condon has written another powerful, memorable novel for young people, with characters that stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

AUGUST 2008

Another heart-warming story from the author of Rain May and Captain Daniel and Being Bee, both CBCA Books of the Year for Younger Readers

When the balloon was born I was going to tell it exactly what I thought about it, how sick it had made my mother and how it had ruined my life.

Ruby's mum is having a baby, but why does she need one of those when she's already got a Ruby? To make matters worse, her best friend Sarah has just found another, better friend.
It seems like everyone is abandoning her. But when Ruby meets the mysterious Magda, who gives her a very special gift that might, just might even be a bit magical, everything begins to change.

This delightful story from the multi-award-winning author of Being Bee and Rain May and Captain Daniel will fill the young reader with wonder, hope and amazing possibilities.

AUGUST 2008

In the ice, silence is forever . . . an Antarctic novel to rival 2008 Printz Winner Geraldine McCaughrean's The White Darkness

The view on the other side was as breathtaking as it was frightening. The other side of that ridge was a glimpse down into a broken, fractured hell. Enormous upthrusts of ice rising fifteen or twenty feet into the air, jagged-edged ridges bisecting one another at strange angles and, here and there between them, the odd glimpse of dark, dangerous, fathomless water. It might well have been my imagination, but I thought for a moment that I could almost detect a slight movement – the tiniest heave of deep ocean swells, trembling through that tortured, frozen seascape.

During the winter of 1922, the Exploration Vessel Raven became trapped in the Antarctic icepack, entombing twenty-eight men aboard it through the dark, polar night. Into White Silence tells their story – a story of a lost past, of a tragic future, of ice, ambition and madness. It captures the terrible, fascinating beauty of Antarctica, both as it was then and is today, and is a journey into the mind of every person who has ever set foot upon those ice-bound shores.

SEPTEMBER 2008

A deeply moving narrative from history about an Australian story that has rarely been told

Set in Western Australia, this is a poignant and revealing tale of one family's experience and response to war and its aftermath, the Spanish Influenza. Told from two points of view – 12-year-old Nell and her returned soldier father whom she barely knows.

Nell wakes up in hospital; her last memory is of being consigned to the Death Train, from which, school lore insists, no-one returns. During the trip home from the isolation hospital where, against all expectations, she has recovered, she and her father each recall the past eight months from when the Armistice was declared to the moment Dad finally reached home – a homecoming delayed by the closure of the port of Fremantle due to an influenza-related strike. On the same day the boat is unable to dock, Nell's mother takes the decision to hide the fact that her son has contracted the flu – the terrible consequences of which will haunt her and change the family forever.

SEPTEMBER 2008

Sometimes, when you search for the truth, you find you're just . . . Hunting Elephants. A remarkable new novel from CBCA Honour Book author of Captain Mack and Billy Mack's War

Harry reads books, he asks questions; he's a naturally curious young man. So when he and his parents head out to the country for Great Uncle Frank's fourth wedding, he prepares himself. He learns what he can before they leave. After all, he doesn't want to look stupid when Frank's time in the Vietnam War comes up in conversation. If it comes up.
But perhaps Harry has more to worry about than an old man's war stories. Is there a crazed gunman in the bush? And what's being kept hidden in the old caravan behind Frank's house? Besides, Harry has scars and memories and guilt of his own to deal with, which won't be easy while he's surrounded by truths that sound like lies, and lies that might just be true.

Like Captain Mack and Billy Mack's War, this novel bravely takes the young reader into the real world, where the assumptions we make can sometimes be dead wrong, and where the things we refuse to talk about might be bigger than we ever imagined.

OCTOBER 2008

A funny, compelling and heartwarming cruisin' story by CBCA award-winning author Brian Caswell

Told as a dual narrative, a writing style Caswell has made his own, between thirteen-and-a-half-year-old Jules Macaffrey and Suzi Q. After Jules' mother wins a cruise for four on the Polynesian Queen, he discovers it's really a floating 'geriatric ward' with very little choice of companionship other than his sixteen-year-old, dancing-obsessed cousin Adrian, the very beautiful Jenna (also sixteen), wheel-chair-bound Suzi Q and bully Barry Barnes.

Falling madly in love with the unobtainable Jenna, Jules develops a strong friendship with Suzi as she steers Jules through his unrequited love – with unexpected results.

OCTOBER 2008

A lyrical tale in the tradition of The Silver Donkey. It is heartwarming and enchanting, guaranteed to touch the soul.

It is 1821 and the child is a loner who spends her time hiding in the Vienna Woods until she spies an old man – a music maker. And so begins an odd friendship which develops through their mutual love of music. The man is composing a new work. It will break new ground. He fears it will be ridiculed and is aware that he is thought mad. He confides in the child who sits for hours watching and listening as he revises and plays. She has a feeling for the music that he cannot fathom. And not only for the music, but for what he is. She knows his pain, his anger, his fear and also his gentleness. Together they give each other the courage to face their critics and dare to be different.

A tale written about an old man who couldn't hear, for a child people considered strange. Yet the song will live forever in the heart and mind of every child where there's nurtured love of music.

MAY 2009