School Stories

WONDER meets Walliams meets TWO WEEKS WITH THE QUEEN - told through the eyes of an 8-year old child, this is a heart-warming and funny story about the refugee crisis and how simple it actually is to show kindness in a world that doesn't always make sense...

Pete dreams of being an All Black but life isn't easy - other boys in the rugby team are bigger and stronger, the new principal is trying to take Maori culture away from school, and his annoying daughter wants to be Pete's friend. Stuff that. She's a straight up weirdo! The schoo...l bully wants to smash his face in every chance he gets, and on top of that, his best mate isn't being himself lately. What's going on with him? A book where young characters begin to question their world in Aotearoa. Was land stolen off Maori years ago? If so, what does that mean now? Why was there a war between Maori and Europeans on the banks of the Waikato river? How different are New Zealand Maori from New Zealand Europeans today, and how different did their cultures used to be? When it seems like everything is against Pete, he has to stand up and fight for what he believes in, and he learns that help can come from the most surprising places.
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A brand new, laugh-out-loud young fiction series from bestselling author Joanna Nadin. Perfect for fans of Horrid Henry and the Trouble with Daisy series. According to head teacher Mrs Bottomley-Blunt, 4B is the WORST CLASS IN THE WORLD. She says school is not about footling or f...iddle-faddling or FUN. It is about LEARNING and it is high time 4B tried harder to EXCEL at it. But Stanley and Manjit didn't LITERALLY mean to make their whole class sick with homemade biscuits. And they definitely didn't LITERALLY mean for Manjit's dog Killer to eat their teacher's shoes or for Bruce Bingley's rat to escape. These things just happened even though they had a FOOLPROOF plan. You see, 4B may be the WORST CLASS IN THE WORLD. But you wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Highly illustrated and featuring two hilarious madcap adventures in one book, these books are just right for children ready for their first chapter books.
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Drawing on her own family history, this is a story from Jackie French about education in Colonial Australia - and how women once had to fight for their right to it. January 1901 Sharks circle the stranded ship as Hannah and her family head to a new home in the newly formed nation... of Australia. Hannah's father has a new post as the schoolmaster in a larger school in northern NSW, where the school's wealthy patron, a sugar planter called Mr Harris, will give the family a life of comfort and the best society. But secrets lurk in this subtropical paradise. From the moment Hannah's mother rebels against her husband's refusal to let Jamie, the Pacific Islander boy who rescues them from their shipwreck, into his school, the facade crumbles. Mr Harris's fortune is built on slavery and the whip. And the new Federal government's first law demands that all Pacific islanders - even those born in Australia - be deported. If Mr Harris learns of the secret school that Hannah's mother is running, it will mean ruin, violence, and possibly even death. Hannah and Jamie must fight for Jamie's right to stay in the land he loves, and for their rights to education and equality. Can the friendship and love of two young people win against such prejudice and power? Based on the lives of Jackie French's great-grandparents and grandmothers who taught - and fought - for equal education and the rights of all Australians, no matter what their background or the colour of the skin, this story shows us how the bravery and the battles of the past can give us courage for the challenges of today.
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Can two kids help expose an illegal puppy farm and save the dog of their dreams in the process? A heart-warming story of bravery and friendship between a lost boy, a tremendous girl and the dog next door ...