AustLit

'Fourteen-year-old Joe had never heard of Wayward Island before he came to live with his cousin, Meg, and her family at Cockle Bay. Nor had he ever heard of Scarface! Wayward Island, out to sea, is a spellbinding place of windswept hills and beckoning seashores. Scarface is a huge, white pointer shark, a fearless killer, an ever-present yet elusive shadow. Terrible events carve the names of both Wayward Island and Scarface into the memories of Joe and Meg of seashores and shadows they will never forget.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Sam walked along the top of the sand-hill, looking out over the rocks and sea. Then he paused, suddenly still, and stared down at the beach below.

A dark mound marked the white sand at the water's edge. He squinted. A heap of net... some ship's cargo washed in... an upturned boat?

This is the story of a boy and a whale. (Source: back cover)

The story of a boy and his pelican, Mr Percival, who live on the South Australian Coorong.

'The Hammerhead Light was a tower of stone. Sometimes it stood gleaming in the sunlight on the high headland of Hammerhead Rock, like a great white monument, sometimes it loomed out of the black storm clouds. To Tessa Noble and the people of Snapper Bay, the Hammerhead Light was more than a lighthouse, but a symbol of safety.'

Source: Colin Thiele Classics ed.

'Everyone in Port Lincoln thinks Snook Pascoe is a loser. People joke about his clumsiness; his teacher ridicules him and even his father, skipper of the tuna boat Blue Fin, is convinced that Snook will never amount to anything. After all, tuna fishing is a hard life for ‘real men’.

'When Snook is allowed, for once, to sail on Blue Fin he faces a terrifying disaster. A waterspout engulfs the ship, the deck is swept clean, the radio and rudder are wrecked, the engine is disabled, the crew is lost overboard and Snook’s father lies unconscious down below. Snook is on his own, far out to sea…' (Publication summary)