Lisdalia

Lisdalia

Brian Caswell

Young Adult / Fiction

It’s bad enough being the smartest kid in the school, but when you’re a girl, and when your father still thinks it’s a man’s world, and when you never learned to back down from an argument, it’s even worse. Lisdalia has all these problems . and more. Of course, it helps if you have a couple of really good friends, like Mike and Tanja, and a teacher who cares, but in the end, when things get serious, it’s who you are inside that counts. Who ever said it was easy being a kid? Lisdalia is the second volume in Brian Caswell’s critically acclaimed Boundary Park Trilogy which began with Mike and concludes with Maddie. Lisdalia won the 1995 Multicultural Children’s Literature Award and was Highly Commended in the 1995 Human Rights Award for Children’s Literature.
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Loop

Loop

Brian Caswell

Young Adult / Fiction

From interdimensional time travel to the choices that define our lives here and now; from the inability to let go to the inevitability of change; from the many faces of alien contact to the healing power of a single human touch, Brian Caswell bridges genres and generations, shifting through tragedy to joy, humour to pathos – from the everday to the exceptional. Loop displays the undeniable talent of one of Australia’s most accomplished and admired writers for both young people and adults. It will tease the emotions and challenge the intellect – drawing us again and again into the ‘loop’ of one man’s unique vision.
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Asturias

Asturias

Brian Caswell

Young Adult / Fiction

“Music never stopped a war or put an end to greed or the hunger for power. But it was never supposed to. It has no reason, just as life has no reason. It just is. And what it is is the best that we can hope to be.” Music is the talent - and the curse - that spans three generations to link Alex Rivera with the secrets of his family’s past. Plucked from obsurity and thrown together with four other musical “prodigies”, Alex rides the power of his music to fame and fortune as the lead-guitarist for Asturias, the latest creation of the music industry machine. But will the forces of commercialism and the stresses of fame destroy them, just as a bloody civil war tore apart another group of young idealists six decades earlier? How could anything go wrong? Everything’s on track. You’re on top of the world. Which is great. As long as you don’t look down …
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Mike

Mike

Brian Caswell

Young Adult / Fiction

Mike and his mother have moved from Melbourne to live at Boundary Park, in Sydney's west. Mike soon wishes they'd never left. At school he becomes the victim of the bully Shane. Then Mike meets Riny, a neighbour with a secret success story in her past, and together they plan an exciting way to overcome Mike's doubts. Mike is the first title in the Boundary Park trilogy continuing with Lisdalia and Maddie. "A most unusual and gripping story, with a great centre character and atmosphere ... touching without being sentimental." Reading Time
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A Cage of Butterflies

A Cage of Butterflies

Brian Caswell

Young Adult / Fiction

"We're like a new toy ... or a new energy source, and they're just playing with us, experimenting. Working out what we can do. What they can do with us." Mikki and the others live at "the farm", an advanced learning facility, a think-tank for a bunch of young people with very high IQs. But what is really going on at the farm? And what about the five much younger children known as the Babies, frail as butterflies? Brian Caswell's new novel explores the power of love . and presents readers with an intriguing jigsaw puzzle of suspense. SHORTLISTED CBC Children's Book of the Year Awards (1993)
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Cruisin'

Cruisin'

Brian Caswell

Young Adult / Fiction

A funny, compelling and heartwarming cruisin' story by CBCA award-winning author Brian CaswellTold as a dual narrative, a writing style Caswell has made his own, between thirteen-and-a-half-year-old Jules Macaffrey and Suzi Q. After Jules' mother wins a cruise for four on the POLYNESIAN QUEEN, he discovers it's really a floating 'geriatric ward' with very little choice of companionship other than his sixteen-year-old, dancing-obsessed cousin Adrian, the very beautiful Jenna (also sixteen), wheelchair-bound Suzi Q and bully Barry Barnes.Falling madly in love with the unobtainable Jenna, Jules develops a strong friendship with Suzi as she steers Jules through his unrequited love - with unexpected results.
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Only the Heart

Only the Heart

Brian Caswell

Young Adult / Fiction

From the chaos and the fear of post-war Saigon, and the terror of pirates on the open ocean, to the triumph and tragedy of a new life. Only The Heart is the story of Toan and Linh and a family that endures the nightmare in search of the dream. When logic says the dream is beyond your reach only heart knows the truth …
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