AustLit

A bush pilot is badly injured, leaving his young son to fly them both home.

The first of P.L. Travers's novels about the magical nanny, Mary Poppins.

When Katie Nana, the much-tried nanny to the Banks family of 17 Cherry Tree Lane, finally storms out in a huff, the wind blows in Mary Poppins and her carpetbag. The Banks children find that Mary Poppins is stern, vain, and usually cross – but also has a touch of magic about her.

'The Hammerhead Light was a tower of stone. Sometimes it stood gleaming in the sunlight on the high headland of Hammerhead Rock, like a great white monument, sometimes it loomed out of the black storm clouds. To Tessa Noble and the people of Snapper Bay, the Hammerhead Light was more than a lighthouse, but a symbol of safety.'

Source: Colin Thiele Classics ed.

I Can Jump Puddles is Alan Marshall's story of his childhood, a happy world in which, despite his crippling poliomyelitis, he plays, climbs, fights, swims, rides and laughs. His world was the Australian countryside early last century: rough-riders, bushmen, farmers and tellers of tall stories, a world held precious by the young Alan Marshall. (Source: Trove)