Showing titles in Geography & Cultures

Billy Chan and his friends are not having a very relaxing summer. Their friend Dylan has been kidnapped by the evil Dragon of Death, and it’s up to them to travel through time, back to the dangerous Dragon Realm in order to save him. Luckily they have their own dragons on side, but they’ll need to collect eight magical pearls if they’re to amass enough power to destroy the Dragon of Death and her followers for good. So begins an epic quest that will take them to the depths of the Frozen Wasteland and the imperial palaces of Ancient China. But can good triumph evil?

In the valley of Fruitless mountain, a young girl named Minli lives in a ramshackle hut with her parents. In the evenings, her father regales her with old folktales of the Jade Dragon and the Old Man on the Moon, who knows the answers to all of life's questions. Inspired by these stories, Minli sets off on an extraordinary journey to find the Old Man on the Moon to ask him how she can change her family's fortune. She encounters an assorted cast of characters and magical creatures along the way, including a dragon who accompanies her on her quest for the ultimate answer.

Subhi's imagination is as big as the ocean and wide as the sky, but his world is much smaller: he's spent his whole life in an immigration detention centre. The Bone Sparrow is a powerful, heartbreaking, sometimes funny and ultimately uplifting hymn to freedom and love. Sometimes, at night, the dirt outside turns into a beautiful ocean. As red as the sun and as deep as the sky. I lie in my bed, Queeny's feet pushing up against my cheek, and listen to the waves lapping at the tent.

You've finally made it to grade six and you're in with the wild gang. It's camp time, time to escape from the parents... But, just your luck, you're stuck with the worst teacher in the whole school! Find out what happens on an unforgettable camp that changed a whole school.

Orphaned twelve-year-old Tigg is the Bandicoot Bushranger, the youngest bushranger on the Ballarat goldfields in 1859. When a robbery goes wrong, Tigg must flee in disguise as one of the tens of thousands of Chinese men and boys braving heat, thirst, starvation and murderous attacks on the long road from Robe in South Australia to the goldfields in Victoria.

Oh la la! Nikki and her band are invited to Paris for a super cool photoshoot – it’s a dream come true! Nikki can’t wait to learn new art styles, practice her French and explore the most romantic city in the world with her crush Brandon. But when MacKenzie starts to stir trouble and invites old friend André to be their tour guide, the drama starts. Can Nikki still enjoy her dream vacay, or will it become a dorky disaster?

Walt Disney Animation Studios’ fantasy-action-adventure, Raya and the Last Dragon, introduces Raya, a lone warrior from the fantasy kingdom of Kumandra who teams up with a crew of misfits in her quest to find the last dragon and bring light and unity back to their world.

At the tender age of eight, chimney sweep Tom Appleby is convicted of stealing and sentenced to deportation to Botany Bay. As he sails out with the First Fleet, Tom sadly realises that he will never set foot on English ground again. Luckily, not long after Tom’s arrival in the colony, the fair and kind Sergeant Stanley decides to take on Tom as a servant. Together, Tom, Sergeant Stanley and his son, Rob, build a house, set up an orchard and a vegetable garden for themselves - and thrive, unlike many others in the new colony.

A hilarious tween adventure set in a dazzling fantasy world with two extraordinary heroines - a modern-day fairy tale with bite. Once best friends, Agatha and Sophie were pulled apart like strangers, each in the arms of a boy, Good with Good, Evil with Evil.... Is their friendship lost forever after? But as they settle into their new lives, their story begs to be rewritten, and this time theirs isn't the only one.

In an alternate reality, 5,000 years in the future, the evil Dragon of Death has become ruler of Dragon City. Humans now live to serve the dragon population, and it’s no different for Billy Chan and his friends. After losing contact with their own dragons, they’re determined to track them down in this new city, even if it means putting their own lives at risk. But one dragon has turned to the dark side and has no plans to return.

Mim Cohen roams the world in a travelling bookshop, with her dad and brother and a horse called Flossy. Flossy leads them where she will, to the place where they're needed most...the place where the perfect book will find its way home. Now Mim has arrived in elegant Paris where she meets Pierre, a talented but anxious artist who cannot bear to give up his paintings, even to sell them. He's miserable and poor. His customers are cross. Mim knows they're here to help Pierre. To calm him down. To turn him into a successful artist. To make him truly happy.

When Silas Heap unseals a forgotten room in the palace, he releases the ghost of a queen who lived 500 years earlier. Queen Etheldredda is as awful in death as she was in life, and she's still up to no good. Her diabolical plan to give herself everlasting life requires Jenna's compliance, Septimus' disappearance, and the talents of her son, Marcellus Pye, a famous alchemist and physician.

Sadie is upset when her mum uproots them from the city to move to the remote small town of Boort. But before long, she has discovered a powerful place and crows that speak to her, and she is drawn to two boys, Lachie and Walter. Then Sadie is thrown back in time to witness a dreadful crime in which her family is involved. Sadie, Walter, and Lachie must find a way to atone for past wrongs, or be doomed to repeat them.

Have you ever wondered how we got here? From gathering berries and hunting mammoths, to shopping at supermarkets and letting people tell us what to do? You might hear a lot of people say 'the world isn't fair'. But why isn't it? And how did it become so? In Unstoppable Us: Volume 1, we learned how humans told stories to become rulers of the world - for good and bad. Now, in this next chapter of the incredible true tale of the Unstoppables, find out how we learned to control animals like dogs, chicken and cows.

The bombs were falling and the smoke rising from the concentration camps, but all Hitler's daughter knew was the world of lessons with Fraulein Gelber and the hedgehogs she rescued from the cold. Was it just a story or did Hitler's daughter really exist? And If you were Hitler's daughter, would all the horror that occurred be your fault, too? Do things that happened a long time ago still matter?

As a young Nahua girl in Mexico during the early 1900s, Luz learned to grind corn in a metate, twist yarn with her toes, and weave on a loom. By the fire, she listened to stories of her community’s joys, suffering, and survival, and wove them into her heart. When the Mexican Revolution came to her village, Luz and her family were forced to flee. In Mexico City, Luz became a model for painters, sculptors, and photographers such as Diego Rivera, Jean Charlot, and Tina Modotti.

When thirteen-year-old Celeste travels to China to visit her grandmother, she uncovers an incredible family secret. And with this secret comes danger and adventure. If Celeste is to save her family and friends, she must learn to harness her rare and powerful gift.

Sam Kerr is an Aussie Rules fan through and through. When she’s excluded from her team she doesn’t know what to do. Netball? No thanks. Chess? Bleugh. Her best friends Dylan and Indi think she should flip from Aussie Rules to soccer – and it doesn’t seem so bad at first. The coach is okay. The team seems nice enough.... But with Chelsea the school bully on her case and the pressure of learning new rules weighing her down, will it all be too much? Will Sam give up – or will she make the flip?

When a terrible drought struck William Kamkwamba's tiny village in Malawi, his family lost all of the season's crops, leaving them with nothing to eat and nothing to sell. William began to explore science books in his village library, looking for a solution. There, he came up with the idea that would change his family's life forever: he could build a windmill. Made out of scrap metal and old bicycle parts, William's windmill brought electricity to his home and helped his family pump the water they needed to farm the land.

It's April 1940 and German troops are pouring onto the streets of Denmark. 12-year-old Bamse is ordered by his father to keep his head down and stay out of trouble. But Bamse and his daring friend Anton can't resist playing the occasional practical joke on the invading soldiers. When it becomes clear that the trouble isn't just going to pass them by, the people of Denmark decide to take action and Bamse and his eccentric family are about to take part in one of history's most dramatic rescues - smuggling Denmark's Jewish population, across the water to Sweden and safety.