Bonnie baby or alien invader? Everyone loves Spike's baby brother Ali. He's so cute even the school bullies want to babysit him. But Spike isn't so sure. Ali's poos are bright green & his soft brown skin looks a little scaly. Yes there's definitely something strange about Ali! & when Spike discovers a way to learn the truth he begins to realise just how different his family really is... ...

Great for boys with a huge collectability factor bolstered by the collectors' cards in the back of the books & links to an excellent interactive website. Malvel has created another deadly Beast to stop Tom from saving the realm of Seraph! Spikefin is a vicious sea creature who drags his victims to a watery grave. Is this the end for Tom & his perilous Quest? ...

On a March night outside the river town of Barron Minnesota three teenage girls gather in a ghost town to play a terrifying game of Russian roulette. By morning one girl will be dead & another in jail. Olivia Hawk claims she didnt pull the trigger on Ashlynn Steele but no one believes her. Olivias best hope is her estranged father an attorney from the city who she barely knows any more. & if hes going to prove Olivias innocence hes going to have to learn everything about her public
- & private
- life however much she might like to keep hidden.

...

When her husband dies Lu Si-yan's mother is encouraged to sell her young daughter into domestic service. Lu Si-yan is just eleven when sold by her uncle. Nearly two years will pass before she can get back home to her mother & brother. In this powerful & compelling novel Sally Grindley portrays the life of a young girl in China a young girl whose life is said to be like 'spilled water'. With a brilliant first-person narrative & a powerful description of time & place this novel is gripping heart-wrenching & utterly mesmerising. ...

Clarissa was born into wealth & privilege as a child shooting & hunting were the norm & pigeons were flown in from Cairo for supper. Her mother was an Australian heiress her father was a brilliant surgeon to the Royal family. But he was also a tyrannical & violent drunk who used to beat her & force her to eat carrots with slugs still clinging to them. Clarissa was determined & clever though & her ambition led her to a career in the law. At the age of 21 she was the youngest ever woman to be called to the Bar. Disaster struck when her adored mother died suddenly. It was to lead to a mind-numbing decade of wild over-indulgence. Rich from her inheritance in the end Clarissa partied away her entire fortune. It was a long hard road to recovery along which Clarissa finally faced her demons & turned to the one thing that had always brought her joy
- cooking. Now at last she has found success sobriety & peace. With the stark honesty & the brilliant wit we love her for Clarissa recounts the tale of a life lived to extremes. A vivid & funny story it is as moving as it is a cracking good read.
...

First a horse in Brisbane falls ill: fever swelling bloody froth. Then thirteen others perish. The foreman at the stables becomes ill & the trainer dies. What is going on? It takes months to establish that the cause is a virus which has travelled from a tree-dwelling bat to horse & from horse to man. The bats had lived undisturbed for centuries in Queenslands eucalyptus forests. Now the forests are being cut down & the colonies of bats are roosting elsewhere... Spillover" tells the story of such diseases. As globalization spreads & as we destroy the ancient ecosystems we encounter strange & dangerous infections that originate in animals but that can be transmitted to humans. Diseases that were contained are being set free & the results are potentially catastrophic. In a journey that takes him from southern China to the Congo from Cameroon to Kinshasa David Quammen tracks these infections to their source & asks what we can do to prevent some new pandemic spreading across the face of the earth." ...

In April 2010 the world watched in alarm as BPs Macondo well suffered a fatal explosion & a catastrophic leak. Over the next three months amid tense scenes of corporate & political finger-pointing millions of barrels of crude oil dispersed across the Gulf of Mexico in what became one of the worst oil spills in history. But there is more to BPs story than this. Tom Bergin an oil broker turned Reuters reporter watched the two-pipeline company of the early 1980s grow into a dynamic oil giant & PR machine by the turn of the twenty-first century. His unique access to key figures before during & after the spill
- including former CEO Tony Hayward
- has enabled him to piece together this compelling account of a corporation in crisis & to examine how crucial decisions made during BPs remarkable turnaround paved the way for its darkest hour.

...

Centenarian Eulalio Assumpcao has reached the end of his long life. From his modest bed in a Rio public hospital as his mind falters he grandly recounts his past to passing nurses his visiting daughter & the whitewashed ceiling. His eccentric stories are seemingly nothing more than the ramblings of a dying man yet as he overlaps each confused memory they begin to coalesce into a brilliant & bitter eulogy for himself & for Brazil. Charting his own fall from aristocracy Eulalios feverish monologue sprawls across the last century from his empire-building ancestors to his drug-dealing great-great grandson. He confronts his senator father who squandered the family fortune on women & cocaine & recalls the imperious mother who he always disappointed; but as he drifts through each shifting episode he never stops searching for Matilde the girl with cinnamon skin who danced her way into his heart & then broke it when she disappeared. ...

Stormy is an orphan & a kitchen skivvy. He tends the compost he scrubs the floors & watches feasts make their way up the mountain as he survives on bread & water. A skivvy is all that Stormy can hope to be. But Stormy has a secret. He wants to be a sky-rider to soar amongst the clouds on spitfyres: flying horses that spit fire & smoke & answer only to their riders. A chance meeting with an escaped convict turns Stormy's life upside down. Sent up to the Academy he uncovers a web of lies deceits & neglect at the centre of which lies the mysterious thirteenth horse. Can Stormy save Thirteen defeat the dark forces at work within the Academy & prove himself worthy as a sky-rider? ...

This unique board book which features two spinners inside is perfect for teaching simple concepts & first words from colours & counting to farm & jungle animals -- & even everyday household objects. Whos that animal? What colour is that flower? How many crayons are there? & whats that noise? Simply spin the wheel point & say! A brilliant interactive early learning book from the creator of DEAR ZOO. ...