AustLit

Ella Kazoo will do anything to avoid having her hair brushed. Her poor mother is beside herself with frustration as she watches Ella's hair get more and more out of control. But what happens when Ella's hair develops a mind of its own? Find out in this delightful tale, told in rollicking verse, about a girl who's got just what it takes to change a really bad hair day into a happy situation for all. 

'Why can’t I drive the car? Why can’t I jump on the chair? These seemingly innocent questions, the kind usually addressed by a child to a parent, take on a crazy new twist as the illustrations reveal that the questions are being addressed to a child - by her dog. But why do I have to eat off the floor?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'It is the start of a long, hot summer and Madalena Grimaldi has disappeared. Claudia is hired to find the missing schoolgirl but she's already working on a case - the death of Guy Valentine, her father.

As Claudia searches the streets, looking for the ghost of her derelict father and for the mysterious man who can lead her to Madalena, she finds herself sinking into a world where, for many, rock bottom is only the beginning.' (Publication summary)

'Beth, 18, looks back on the events of the past four years, beginning with the anniversary of her sister's death from leukemia. Sam, a stoic seven-year-old genius, suddenly changes from a docile brother to an uncontrollable child he calls Del-Del (from the constellation Delphinus). Convinced that the boy is possessed by the devil, his distraught family consults an exorcist, whose work temporarily mitigates the ravings. But it is Beth who ultimately risks her life to uncover the psychological foundation of Del-Del's genesis.'

Source: Publishers Weekly.

'Trisha Kent, by inheritance a silent partner in a Queensland (Australia) furniture firm owned by distant relatives-by-marriage, leaves Melbourne to meet the family she's never seen, and to decide how she should vote in a proposed takeover. Awaiting her in Queensland: a brace of brothers at the firm's helm; the firm's attractive accountant, who'll teach Trisha to ride horseback, and then some; a paraplegic craftsman, as bitter as his wife is loving; and the aggrieved wife of Cousin Julian–who had not only dipped into the till and skipped off for distant parts, but had actually tried to murder his spouse. Before the sort-out, there'll be a murder and an attempted one, arson, a gun-barrel confrontation and the work of an exceptional mare who earns her oats.'

Source: Kirkus Reviews.

'To the mud and rains of gold-rush-town Gympie (Queensland) come charming gambling-man Robert Walden, his apprehensive but loyal wife Elizabeth, and their children Edward and Sarah. Robert's sure he'll bottom out a claim in no time, but it looks like hard times. Elizabeth, however, takes courage from the friendship of Maggie Doyle, owner of the Wild Swan hotel, whose cockney accent chimes like Bow Bells–until Maggie reveals that she is in truth Lady Margaret Doyle down on her luck. There are other pleasant neighbors: Dr. Abraham Miller, brilliant and usually drunk; Bert Peters, Miller's genial partner in their apparently paid-out claim; John Trent, kind store-owner (who will fall in love with Elizabeth and urge her to leave Robert); and Jim and Molly Burton, honorable folk farming in aborigine country. But then son Edward is killed in a fall, and raging Robert blames and threatens drunken, slow Doc Miller. So when someone soon murders Miller, Robert is naturally suspected. The family is ostracized, even Elizabeth cannot quite believe in Robert's innocence, and–after threats and hurts and a close escape with the Burtons from an aborigine massacre–the principal characters meet by a flooded river bank for a harrowing show-down, ending with the confession and death of the murderer.'

Source: Kirkus Reviews.

'High-school teacher Philip Blair is blind, so when a nice teenage girl befriends him at the bus stop and then gets into a man's car–and is later found murdered–Philip can't identify the man in the car. Frustrated, he insists on sleuthing, with some aid from his estranged girlfriend and his policeman buddy, and it soon seems that another teenage girl's recent death may be connected. And is yet another girl, who perhaps saw what the other two saw, slated for murder? Not only does Philip solve the crime and triumph over the killer in a Wait Until Dark-style duel; he also learns to accept his blindness and the love of his loyal lady.'

Source: Kirkus Reviews

'Professor Belville-Smith had bored university audiences in England with the same lecture for fifty years. Now he was crossing the Australian continent, doing precisely the same. Never before had the reaction been so extreme, however, for shortly after an undistinguished appearance at Drummondale University, the doddering old professor is found brutally murdered.

'As Police Inspector Royle (who has never actually had to solve a crime before) investigates the bizarre behaviour of some worthy locals, a hilarious, highly satirical portait of life down under emerges.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.