Bøger af Bronwyn Blake

Kes is facing the unthinkable. As drought and bushfire threatens their lives, their homes, and wipes out their cattle, the unthinkable is becoming a reality - her family will have to abandon the mountain property of her great-grandparents. Kes is torn by her search for her own identity and her Aboriginal grandmother. If her gentle father was not a stolen child, but simply unwanted, will she keep this knowledge to herself? And then there are the incredible discoveries, one which only makes her more confused, and the other which could be their salvation?

Want to know why your socks go missing? Can't find your schoolbooks? Wonder why everything ends up under your bed? Blame Paddy McCann, your times-forty great-grandson who's researching his ancestors - - You! Paddy McCann is in trouble. Not only does he have the most cantankerous teacher in Castlemaine College picking on him, but also his research project (a lost dog from 2008AD) has just run away and lost himself in 3005AD. Paddy needs to prove that he is 'ethical and responsible' before he is allowed to visit the 21st century, but things keep getting in the way. Things like jellyfish, skunks, lost socks and bossy Erian Tovasser. When finally he arrives, and just as he's learning to master the problems of wheels (on bikes, cars, skateboards and trains), he and all his other classmates are recalled to school... but not before Paddy lands himself in dire strife... more than even he could imagine. Paddy's got himself into a disaster zone in the 24th century, his teachers are furious with him, the world is suddenly in crisis, but the man whose life he's saved sees it very differently. So is Paddy McCann the worst troublemaker of the century? Or has he just saved the world?

Out of the Blue is an adventure novel for 12 to 15 year-olds. It is the third book in the Australian, Gippsland Trilogy about the Lawson and Martin families, cattle farmers in the Baw Baw Mountains of Victoria. It follows Find me a River and Rock Dancer, [both Children's Book Council of Australia Notable Books]. It is a year since bushfire and drought devastated their Baw Baw Mountains cattle property and the farm is in danger of foreclosure. As the story begins the six teenagers are exploring the cave system on their property, discovered the previous year. Here they find an undiscovered series of passages and caves, but only have time to explore part of the new section before leaving to assist Finn's aunt at a youth camp. Kes Martin, passionate about birds, has been observing nesting peregrine falcons, but the nest is disturbed by intruders and the fledglings left to starve... a discovery which shortly will have unexpected repercussions. While at camp, Kes saves an injured falcon and takes it to a raptor rescue centre owned by the very wealthy Henshaw family. This apparently everyday visit to the veterinary clinic turns into a horrific episode for Kes when she is suspected of a serious crime. Shortly after Kes, Finn and Brian return home from camp, Kes's nightmarish time becomes even worse when her irrepressible twin brothers Jon and Jack find a way into the locked cave system and become lost kilometres underground. Each of the cousin's resilience and resourcefulness is called upon to deal with this terrible potential tragedy. Sarah's brilliant skills are again needed, but not even she, or any of the others, can foresee the amazing end.

'Dangerous Waters' is a Children's Book Council of Australia, Notable Book. A log rolled on the fire and the whole clearing lit up. Lying in the bracken was something that looked very much like a body! They'd only gone out sailing, but when the wind died and they had to drag the dingy home along the lake edge, they ended up with more than just a dead wind. Joshua has never met his American cousin, Zoe, before these holidays and he doesn't like her much. But at least she's a good sailor. When the two of them discover a body on the lake shore, Zoe proves that she can handle more than rough weather... Especially when neither their parents nor the police believe the 'tall story'... And even more so when they find a very dangerous character talking to Joshua's little brother. But they know what they've seen and go looking for some answers... or is it just looking for trouble?

Carrie, a desert child, born and raised in the heart of the Australian continent by her grandparents, meets by chance, Anna, a sea child from Flinders Island, first at Kings Canyon, in Central Australia, then at Kett's cattle station in tropical Northern Territory. Carrie is a fiercely independent girl and a passionate naturalist. After living and searching by herself in the desert surrounding Kings Creek Station, her long exploration ends with the astonishing discovery of a thought-to-be extinct marsupial. Anna, also passionate about the sea and its creatures, is far more at home in a fishing boat, and her small wild island, north of Tasmania, in Bass Strait. A tumultuous, and at times terrifying, friendship between the two girls follows, echoed in the lives of their two mothers and the secrets of their past ... the secrets and shocking events which will both separate and bind Carrie and Anna together forever..

Paddy McCann! He's back again. Is he trying to save the world or just his skin? A terrible crisis is about to engulf the world and Paddy is at the centre of it. Brutal gangs, led by the worse dictator in history, have their sights set on stealing the most important secret the world has ever developed... and the two people inventing it; Anders Ulverson and Paddy McCann. Is he still the worst student in Castlemaine Second School according to Mr Jacks, or is he Mr Protector of the greatest genius who ever lived? And... is Paddy McCann the hero anyway... or is it really six thousand furious bull ants?

The Gippsland Trilogy. Book 2 Rock Dancer is an Australian Children's Book Council, Notable Book. Leah is fourteen and one of the top gymnasts in the country. At least she was. Until she failed to catch her best friend, Morgan, on the uneven bars and her life changed forever. Now Morgan's back is broken and Leah's climbing rock faces with Sarah and Angie, far from the world of competitive gymnastics. But Leah's past comes looking for her. Bronwyn Blake lives close to Bass Strait, Wilsons Prom National Park, and within a few hours of the Gippsland Lakes and the High Country... the 'home country' for the Gippsland Trilogy: 'Find me a River', 'Rock Dancer' and 'Out of the Blue'.

'From up here, in my tree house, I can see over our back fence, into the yard of the house where Head was murdered. 'The day I used up the first of my nine lives, I had the worst idea I have ever had in my whole life. This brainwave threatened to shorten it by eighty years and eight lives. But obviously I didn't know all that when I jumped on my skateboard, and sailed around the block to Head's front door!' When Nick Riley decides to talk to his neighbour about the way he mistreats his dog, Nick himself becomes a murder suspect and a thief. Even worse, what he knows about Head's associates, Beale and Mad Pig Perron, could cost him his life. 'Nick Riley's Ninth Life' is a fast-moving adventure story with three young male primary characters. As with 'Dangerous Waters', [same target audience] the books have proved highly successful for early high school reluctant readers, particularly young teenage boys.

Twenty women share their incredible stories of surviving and thriving in the remote Australian 'Gulf Country', near the Gulf of Carpentaria.Gulf women are self-sufficient, generous, and can cope with almost anything that life and the environment throws at them: floods, drought, sickness, emergencies. Whether they are graziers, fisherwomen, ringers, women in tourism, aviation and education, Indigenous women or descendants from early women settlers, this powerful book gives these women a voice to tell their own stories.There are stories of new mothers on properties isolated and inaccessible for months in the wet season; women giving birth at home with only neighbours to assist; reminiscences from last century and World War II, and accounts of fishing in the Gulf in sometimes unimaginable conditions.From the kids wanting a baby croc for a pet to the terror of a snake bite with a flooded airstrip and impassable roads, these women treat the extraordinary events in their lives as just part of their remote way of life.Set in a world of vast landscapes, distance and merciless climate, Beyond the Outback contains riveting tales of the lives of the women who live, work and raise families in one of Australia's most isolated regions. It will be loved by readers of Sara Henderson, Toni Tapp Coutts and Terry Underwood.