AustLit

'White gum rustle, tawny frog mouths still as wood, dragonflies swoop. Banjo frog calls the secret – watch the world carefully, your backyard is home to animals other than you! A child stands on her back step at dusk and surveys her backyard. The backyard is teeming with life - birds, possum, native rat, bats, insects and bugs.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Maddy Frank has always lived in Jermyn Street. Always. But now her mum and dad are making her move from the city, far away to some place called Plenty. How will Maddy survive without everything and everyone she knows? Nobody understands. But what about her mysterious new classmate, Grace Wek, who was born in a refugee camp? Could Grace actually understand how Maddy feels? ' (Publication summary)

'In Carrick things are changing and Mally needs to change too. Her brothers and sisters are fearless, light as scuds, quick as hoppers. Not Mally. She knows too many secrets. Mally is frightened - frozen at the edge of the shore. Out of nowhere comes Dolyn Craig - a sneak and a bully. But that's not the worst of it. He wants something from Mally. But what?' (Publisher's blurb)

'The people of Carrick have been whispering behind Neen's back for most of her life; ever since her father drowned and her mother disappeared.

'The townspeople say her mother was a merrow who has returned to her real home in the ocean. Neen wonders if perhaps the villagers are right. But if her mother is a merrow then what does this make Neen?

'This pitiless summer all the talk will end in trouble.

'All Neen wants is the truth.' (From the publisher's website.)