Warm and hopeful, this is a touching and honest depiction of a family changing together-and staying together. "I wonder what people would think if they could take the front off our house like a doll's house and watch us. All in the same house, but everyone separate. No one talking, but everyone thinking the same thing. Will we ever be a normal family again?" Izzy's family is under the spotlight when her dad comes out as Danielle, a trans woman. Izzy is terrified her family will be torn apart. Will she lose her dad? Will her parents break up? And what will people at school say? Now all eyes are on Izzy. Can she face her fears, find her voice, and stand up for her family and what's right?

One of a series of readers for African students which aims to help them to develop an awareness and a love of language, and consists of stories from all over Africa. In this story Madume suddenly hears shouting; his friends are in trouble and he has to do something to save them from a lioness.

In "Nothing Happens Here," Veronica Tracey, a resourceful former spy turned PI, uses her uncanny ability to track down the most elusive targets, taking readers on a thrilling ride. “I’m looking for a private investigator. I have lost something.” Not someone? “My speciality is people and I’ve been known to find the occasional lost dog.” “How about garden ornaments?” “Pardon?” I could feel a frown puckering the skin on my forehead and worked hard to dislodge it. “I’ve lost some garden ornaments.” “That’s not something I’ve ever been asked to find before. What type of ornaments?” “Gnomes,” he said with a straight face. “Gnomes? Are you serious?” Veronica Tracy PI has quite a bit on her plate, on any given day: her 94-year-old Nana and the Cronies of Doom, her cousin and his interesting love life, a retired greyhound, a new and successful private investigation company, and a crazy person following her. She juggles life with a sense of humour and the enduring knowledge that everything is temporary. This book is written in New Zealand English and set in Upper Hutt, New Zealand.

The book that spawned Finding Fanny 'It doesn't matter where you go,' I tell them. 'Travelling just means getting out of where you were.' Which is my half-assed way of saying, if they have stumbled through my doorway, they are lost as hell. Off the guidebook grid. Bumfuck nowhere, in other words.Pocolim is a little village somewhere - or nowhere - in Goa. It is home to Ferdie, the postman, who sets out to find his long-lost love, Millie. Along for the ride in a recently repaired vintage car are the most unlikely companions: his friend Angie, the sweet, virginal widow; her mother-in-law, the extraordinarily corpulent and bossy, Rosalina Eucharistica; renowned painter, Don Pedro who finds lost inspiration in the vastness of Rosalina's body; and Savio, friend of Angie's late husband and once contender for her love. On the road, resentments, ambitions, bitterness and desires come to a boil; as disturbing secrets tumble out, redemption strikes where they least expect it.The Village of Pointless Conversation is a sensuous, funny, full-bodied affair, shot through with quiet gloom that peels off the thin skin of pretence under which lie all our human absurdities.