Shirley Marr Books

For fans of When You Trap a Tiger and A Place to Belong comes a gentle, “touching” (Booklist, starred review) middle grade novel about love and resilience, interwoven with Chinese mythology, a Little World made completely of paper, and the ever-changing, but constant moon.The night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, making mooncakes with Ah-Ma, was the last time Peijing Guo remembers her life being the same. She is haunted by the magical image of a whole egg yolk suspended in the middle like the full moon. Now adapting to their new life in Australia, Peijing thinks everything is going to turn out okay as long as they all have each other, but cracks are starting to appear in the family. Five-year-old Biju, lovable but annoying, needs Peijing to be the dependable big sister. Ah-Ma keeps forgetting who she is; Ma Ma is no longer herself and Ba Ba must adjust to a new role as a hands-on dad. Peijing has no idea how she is supposed to cope with the uncertainties of her own world while shouldering the burden of everyone else. If her family are the four quarters of the mooncake, where does she even fit in?

Meixing Lim and her family have arrived at the New House in the New Land, inherited from First Uncle who died tragically and unexpectedly while picking oranges in the backyard. Everything is vast and unknown to Meixing and not in a good way, including the house she has dubbed Big Scary. She is embarrassed by the second-hand shoes given to her by the kind neighbours, has trouble understanding the language at school, and with fitting in and making new friends. Her solace is a glasshouse in the garden that inexplicably holds the sun and the moon and all the secrets of her memory and imagination. Her fragile universe is rocked when tragedy strikes and Ma Ma refuses to face the world outside. Meixing finds herself trapped within the shrinking walls of Big Scary. Her parents said this would be a better life for them all, but it feels like the worst and most heart-breaking experience of Meixing's entire existence. Surviving will take all the resilience and inner belief of this brave girl to turn their world around. A Glasshouse of Stars is based on the real childhood experiences of the author, brushed with a light touch of magic realism.

James is stuck in the present... and that's the last place he wants to be. His parents have separated, and he must get used to living two different lives. Now, he has two homes, two bedrooms and two routes to school with nothing adding up to the one great life he used to have. James wishes he could go back to the past, to his Top Six best memories with Mum and Dad. Then, James meets Yan, a girl who looks at the world differently, and he discovers that travelling back in time might be possible. But are his memories as perfect as he remembers?

Niemand hätte gedacht, dass alles so endet. Niemand hätte gedacht, dass es Tote geben würde. Nicht einmal Eliza, die kluge Eliza, die nun alle für eine Mörderin halten. Vielleicht ist sie das. Irgendwie. Vielleicht hat ihr unendlicher Zorn einen anderen zum Mörder gemacht. Ihr Zorn auf die Mutter, die alles ist, nur keine Mutter; ihr Zorn auf all den Luxus, der am Ende nichts bedeutet; ihr Zorn auf eine verlogene, zum Kotzen heile Welt.