Jamila has left her friends, her school and her home in Iraq, and now she has a new home. It’s safe in Australia, but Jamila is finding it hard to settle in. She misses her best friend and worries for her dad’s safety back in Iraq. It’s hard to speak and write in English all day. And Jamila has a secret she wants to keep hidden.

When she joins the choir, Jamila begins to feel happy. Singing helps take her worries away. And singing will help her find her place in her new life, a place where she can shine.

Songbird is a tender story about belonging, about the importance of friendship and asking for help, and about the parts of our lives we keep concealed.

Eleven-year-old Jamila is settling into her new life in Australia, along with Mama, Baba and baby Amir. She still misses her home in Iraq, but she’s happy to have her whole family safe and together again. Jamila and her new best friend, Eva, sing side by side in the choir at school, and have picnics together on the weekend.

One day, Jamila gets some exciting news-her oldest friend from Iraq, Mina, has been granted a visa to come to Melbourne with her family. Jamila can’t wait to see her. She and Eva make a list of all the things they want to show Mina when she gets to Melbourne. But when Mina arrives, things do not go as planned. Mina is tired and anxious all the time, and she and Eva don’t get on.

Jamila feels torn between her two friends, and sad that Mina isn’t the same funny, cheerful person she remembers. Can Jamila be a true friend to Mina, and help her feel happy in her new home?

A heartwarming story about a young girl taking action to clean up her local creek, from beloved middle-grade author Ingrid Laguna.

Bailey’s mum had always said that being by the creek with Bailey and her dad was as good as it gets. She had shown Bailey sap glistening on tree trunks. They had crouched together to nudge a beetle onto a leaf. They had sat on the creek’s edge with their bare feet in the water.

It’s one year since Bailey’s mum died. And her dad doesn’t seem to care much about anything. But Bailey still spends afternoons by the creek with her dog, Sheba.

Until Sheba gets sick-very sick-from something she must have swallowed while swimming in the creek. And Bailey notices all the rubbish polluting the waterway.

Between visits to Sheba in the vet hospital, Bailey tries to find a way to make the creek safe for Sheba and other animals. And through her unexpected friendship with Israel, a quiet boy who knows about endangered species, Bailey Finch finds the courage to take a stand.

Bailey Finch Takes a Stand is a moving story about love and loss, about caring for the environment and standing up to make change happen.

Best Suited 7- 12 Years
Kit goes to school with her friends Harley and Vanya, and always tries her best at everything she does. Arlo is too loud, too close, just too… much. But when a moving van pulls up next to Kit’s house one weekend, Kit and Arlo find out they have a lot more in common than they thought. Join Kit, Arlo and their friends as they navigate school, home life and friendships, and learn more than a few things about how to get along.

Best Suited 15+ Years
Ingrid Laguna never did things the easy way – she spent much of her young adulthood rebelling against conformism, playing in a mostly girl band and travelling around Australia, before marrying Ben and going to live in Alice Springs. Pregnancy didn’t come easily either but, through IVF, she finally fell pregnant. And when she went into premature labour at 23 weeks and her twin sons were born-each weighing about the same as a pat of butter and small enough to fit into the palm of her hand – she had to call on all her reserves of strength and stubbornness to see the journey through and be the mother that her sons needed.

This is an earthy, honest and heartbreaking memoir about what it means to love; and about the terrible powerlessness and torment involved when there is fear of losing a child. Yet despite the pain and anguish, Ingrid’s memoir is at its heart about how we can experience unimaginable difficulty – and still somehow find the spirit to come through blazing with love and optimism and even a kind of joy.