The school holidays have a bad start. Belinda's father doesn't arrive home and it is raining. The news is that his car went over the cliff into the surf beach, but there is no body. Belinda, her mother and Kate stay at Amanda's family beach house to be near where the car went over. Belinda thinks that her father maybe got washed up further up the coastline and perhaps could be sick or ill somewhere in the back country. The girls discover how unusual their three kittens are. When held, all animal speech can be understood. So with the help of the kittens the three girls spend their wet school holidays searching. There is a helpful dog, grouchy possums and a dopey old horse involved before Belinda's father is found at last.

Moving to the city is terrible mistake Paulus knows but what can he do when Father comes back from war and wants to take the whole family to Rome? They have to plan their future (which for us is the ancient past). In Roman Tales you can see what life must have been like.

BRAIN MAN Randy O'Rourke wants the robot he built named Brain to be as "Super Colossal" as those at Future World, an amusement park where robots do all the work. Brain doesn't disappoint him. He does Randy's homework and chores--plus some things he wasn't intended to do. His red heart glows in response to compliments. He blinks when touched. He uses "mind talk" to communicate with Randy. However, some of Brain's unprogrammed actions are less endearing. From minor glitch to major disaster, the robot provokes a series of escalating problems. Although Brain is out of control, Randy can't escape that the robot is almost human...and he loves the big pest. DOUBLE TROUBLE DITTO BOX Randy O'Rourke invents a "Ditto Box", a machine that copies whatever he puts inside. When he wants a premium baseball glove like his friend Jake's, he puts his friend's glove in, and--voila!--a duplicate comes out. If Randy and Jake want pizza, he orders one, makes a copy, and they eat two. Randy copies homework, games and even Asthma, Jake's furry mutt. Everything is going great until his little sister wants a playmate. Twozy, as Suzy names her "twin", looks and whines just like Suzy. Mom and Dad are mad at Randy for doubling their trouble, and he has to babysit more girls more often. Two sisters are twice as bad as one! How can he get rid of the new one?

Jane Smith is the unhappy, resentful, eleven-year-old daughter of a single parent. Her escape from the unpleasantness she considers her life is through another world. There, she's one of the four powerful Patrollers sworn to the service of the Princess in the Far Tower. Their quest: To choose the bravest warriors in all space and time to fight the Red Wizard. Jane's ordinary life improves as she makes friends. She's picked for the school play and the prestigious trampoline team. But her otherworldly life with its epic adventures continues to be more important to her than the one she lives in...until the warriors' battle causes a merging of Jane's ordinary world and her otherworldly one.

In 1941, Darwin is bombed, and the war against the Germans and the Japanese gets alarmingly close. While those in the area are raising money for the war effort with backyard concerts, the kids on Bolton Road have their own ideas about how to help out. Notices around the town warn that loose talk kills. Are spies passing information to the enemies right under their noses? Mable convinces Nancy, Janet, Fred and Lennie that catching spies is the best way to do their part. But will their efforts catch the traitors...or make the kids targets?

Mike, Alinea and their alien pet, Beeper, are expected to stay out of trouble during their holiday on an archaeological dig in Central Australia. While in the cave of the dreaming, they inadvertently trigger a time gate that sends them to another universe else entirely! To get back to the dig site, they'll have to escape an intergalactic lost property office until claimed, help their new friends, and avoid being eaten by the deadly Kloog raiding the protected planets--again. Somehow Mike doesn't think his father will accept "It's not our fault!" if he finds out they haven't been where they were supposed to be the whole time...

Jenny has an older brother and a younger sister--and a father in the hospital. Feeling like she's always in the way or even invisible to those around her, she's sure nobody cares about her at all. Even as she seeks attention in all the wrong ways, can Jenny's family prove to her she's not only a vital part of them but unconditionally loved as well?