WELCOME TO AUSTRALIAN USED HOMESCHOOL BOOKS!
AUSTRALIANA FICTION - THE DEPRESSION, WORLD WARS & MODERN AUSTRALIA
Strike! (Christine Harris) $3 PB EC It’s 1928 and the Australian waterfront has come to a standstill. There’s a strike! And George Dobson knows that hen his father is arrested, the whole family will end up paying. Workers have rights, but the battle lines are drawn and it’s the bosses against workers, workers against scabs. One minute a scab is someone who takes your job when you’re on strike: a faceless, brainless traitor with no backbone. The next it’s all different. A scab is someone with a name, a home and a family. Recommended! 9+ http://www.redhen.com.au/detail.cfm?productID=1374 (Cover different)
The Bamboo Flute (Garry Disher) $4 PB EC (Minor cover crease) Paul is a dreamer, his head full of gentle violins and rippling pianos. But his father is battling to keep the farm and dejected men are tramping the roads looking for work, a sandwich, a cup of tea…..No one has time for music or dreams when there is a Depression on. In 1932, during Australia's deep economic depression, young Paul meets Eric the Red--a wandering swagman--who teaches Paul how to play the bamboo flute and brings music back into Paul's life. 8+ THE CHILDREN’S BOOK COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA BOOK OF THE YEAR: YOUNGER READERS http://books.google.com.au/books?id=bf0sM6BQnP4C&dq=The+Bamboo+Flute+(Garry+Disher)&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0
Somewhere Around The Corner (Jackie French) $4 PB EC The demonstration was wild, out of control. Barbara was scared. She saw the policeman running towards her. She needed to escape. She closed her eyes and did precisely that: she walked somewhere around the corner….into another demonstration….another time. Barbara was lucky – she met Young Jim who took her out of the strange, frightening city to his home. It was 1932, when Australia was in the grip of the Depression, and Jim lived in a shanty town. 9+ CHILDREN’S BOOK COUNCIL AUSTRALIA SHORT-LISTED BOOK. http://www.harpercollins.com.au/global_scripts/product_catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0207183597
Journey To A Dream (Thurley Fowler) $4 PB EC (Tanning on inturns) Belinda longed to be back at home in Melbourne, back at her own school, with its library of books – but they had travelled so far, with their worldly possessions loaded on a wagon, chasing her father’s dreams for a new life in the country. And what they found was so unexpected…. A story of soldier settlement after WWI in the Murrumbidgee River irrigation scheme area. 10+ http://www.amazon.co.jp/Journey-Dream-Puffin-Thurley-Fowler/dp/0140364641
The Breaker (Kit Denton) $4 PB EC This classic story of the injustice and horror of war inspired the internationally acclaimed Australian motion picture, Breaker Morant. There was a Breaker Morant - he was executed at Pietersburg on 27 February 1902. His crime? Wilful murder of civilians. Yet to this day his guilt remains in doubt. Kit Denton's novel, The Breaker, does more than recount the facts and mystery surrounding Morant's death sentence. Full of action and set in three continents, it covers the entire range of the Breaker's activities. We see him as a champion horseman, a likeable larrikin, a popular balladeer. We see him in love and in war. Then we see him face the firing squad that will end his life. Was he a cold-blooded killer or a scapegoat? 12+ http://www.oztion.com.au/vshops/item.aspx?itemid=4681369&shopid=710&tid=
Brothers In Arms (Graeme Farmer) $3 PB VGC When 14 year old Yukio comes from Japan to the quiet coastal town of Yangan Bay, he tries to enlist the help of Josh and Daniel – sworn enemies – to uncover a 50 year old mystery. In 1942 his grandfather, Gukei, came on a secret mission in a Japanese submarine to set up a spy cell in Australia. The sub disappeared, never to be seen again and Yukio wants to find it and take his grandfather’s bones back to Japan to be buried in the Shinto manner. 10+ http://cgi.ebay.com.au/3-00-GRAEME-FARMER-BROTHERS-IN-ARMS_W0QQitemZ150176526997QQihZ005QQcategoryZ1104QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
The Seventh Pebble $3 PB GC To Rachel Blackwood, the Spring just before the Second World War seems the same as ever – until the Connell family move into Hollybush Flat. This story explores the need to belong through the story of a small town’s religious prejudice. The author depicts well the hardships of being different. THE CHILDREN’S BOOK COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA COMMENDATION 10+ http://cgi.ebay.nl/THE-SEVENTH-PEBBLE-Eleanor-Spence_W0QQitemZ320181060438QQihZ011QQcategoryZ90962QQcmdZViewItem
The Other Side Of The Family (Maureen Pople) $3 PB VGC (Light tanning on inturns only) To escape the bombing of World War II, Kate, 15, has been sent from England to Sydney ("transported," she says, "to the colonies like a convict!") But soon Japanese submarines are sighted in the harbour, and Kate is sent away again, this time to stay with her dreaded Grandmother Tucker in the country where she discovers a totally unexpected character and startling revelations about her family. 10+ http://cgi.ebay.com/The-Other-Side-of-the-Family-by-Maureen-Pople-(1990)_W0QQitemZ130242461084QQcmdZViewItem?IMSfp=TL08072912118r37589 (Cover different)
Fly Away Peter (David Malouf) $3 PB GC What draws the privileged Ashley Crowther and the untutored Jim Saddler together is the swampland that Ashley is managing for his father and that Jim knows better than any man. He introduces his new employer to the ways of kingfishers and ibis, and the lines of class and education dissolve. But when war breaks out in Europe. Jim and Ashley are drawn into the trenches. In telling the story of what they witness and endure — in showing how each man struggles to retain the world and self he has left and may never see again — Malouf produces a work of lingering beauty and emotional resonance. 12+ http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=2-0679776702-1
The Green Wind (Thurley Fowler) $3 PB FC+ It’s 1948 and the Robinsons have more problems than most of the families in the fruit-growing community in which they live. They have very little money, Jennifer’s father still suffers from the terrible effects of his experiences as a P.O.W. in WW II, and their fruit crops have been hit hard by bad seasons. 12+
The Year Of The Currawong (Eleanor Spence) $4 HBDJ VGC Moving from a busy city into a country village can bring big changes into the life of a family. The Kendalls look forward to their move from Sydney to Currawong Crossing with mixed feelings, especially Elizabeth, who dreads starting at a new school. But in the course of their first year, so many things happened, beginning with a forest fire and ending with a Back-To-The-Crossing Day, that no one has time to regret the old life in Sydney. 9+
A Sapphire For September (H.F. Brinsmead) $3 HB FC (Ex lib) Sixteen year old Binny helps her mother run a coffee shop in the heart of bustling Sydney, but she is always restless, searching for something more. Then she meets Adam O’Donnell, a member of a lapidary club who invites her on the club excursion to the Blue Mountains in search of precious gems. Illustrated. 10+
Spark Of Opal (Mavis Thorpe Clark) $4 HB VGC Discouraged that their family has not made its fortune in the Australian opal fields, a teen-age brother and sister make a dangerous final attempt to change the family's luck. 11+ http://www.cornstalk.com.au/juv.htm
Mister Eternity (Maggie Hamilton) $2 PB EC (Ex lib) An exciting and thoughtful story of two friends, Sebastian and Josie, as they travel from Kings Cross, Sydney, to the Blue Mountains tracking down one clue after another in their search for who beat up their elderly friend, Lil. They find that there is much more to the mystery than they had imagined. 12+ http://www.maggiehamilton.org/booksandaudio/mister.htm